4/7: "Mother Treason," a story from the collection, "Gordon Liddy Is My Muse," by John Calvin Batchelor. January 1, 1990. Read by John Batchelor.
The John Batchelor Show
John Batchelor
4.5 • 2.8K Ratings
🗓️ 31 December 2023
⏱️ 17 minutes
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Summary
https://www.amazon.com/Gordon-Liddy-Muse-Calvin-Batchelor/dp/0671690787
From Publishers Weekly
Posing as hack writer Tommy "Tip" Paine, Batchelor ( The Birth of the People's Republic of Antarctica ) offers a comic and often provocative look at contemporary America in this episodic "autobiographical" novel. In eight chapters, each self-contained, Tip roams from Moscow to Hollywood to New England to his ultimate destination, G. Gordon Liddy's Firearms Security Academy in Arizona. While in Russia, he watches a boyhood friend progress, over the years, from awed admirer of American western movies to KGB superstar to an official non-person, "disappeared" as part of that nation's changing politics. In Hollywood, despite the warnings of his decidedly offbeat agent, Tip falls into the clutches of a woman who is not what she seems. In New England, together with his "imaginary best friend, McKerr," Tip solves a multiple murder and uncovers what is possibly a relic of American history. Finally, in the Arizona desert, he posits an arguable identity for the still-elusive"Deep Throat" of the Watergate scandal. Other tales in this totally engaging work recount run-ins with famous literary personages, wealthy Texans and restless Vietnam veterans, or suggest a dark and ancient secret hidden in the heart of Germany. This may be Batchelor's breakthrough novel to the wide audience he deserves.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The narrator of this inventive picaresque novel is Tip Paine, formerly a spook for the National Security Agency and now a moderately successful sci-fi/spy writer. In eight exuberant episodes Tip ranges from Moscow to Hollywood. He provides mystery (a tale of murder and mayhem in a small New England town), commentary on international politics (an elegiac account of a Russian KGB agent who falls victim to glasnost), and wickedly funny satire of pomp and foolishness in Texas high society, a university writing workshop, and a desert training academy for mercenaries. By alluding frequently to the classics of American literature (e.g., Moby Dick, The Last of the Mohicans ), Batchelor creates illuminating but highly entertaining commentary on contemporary society.
- Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc
October, 1961: East German soldiers preparing.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Gordon Liddy is my muse. Mother treason. Four. |
| 0:05.0 | Diamonds are next, along with plunder of plenty. |
| 0:11.0 | By 1981, I had passed through the politics of war, poverty, marriage, and divorce, to arrive at my first sci-fi spy sales. |
| 0:19.0 | What this means, if you're curious, is that I got drafted, clerked for the National Security Agency, got loose, |
| 0:25.2 | clerked on New York Grub Street, got married, found a clerk to end it, got smart, and started to make |
| 0:30.9 | it all up, clerking for tip. |
| 0:34.0 | I had just enough surplus to exercise my return ticket to rush again. |
| 0:40.0 | I needed the trip to clear my head of some strange family affair trouble in Persia, |
| 0:45.0 | which I won't include here perhaps another day. |
| 0:48.0 | Also, there was a Looney Texas bankrupt to avoid and a screenplay to recover from. |
| 0:54.2 | My grand solution was February Finair, junk it for 22 days in the Soviet Union, |
| 1:00.3 | Helsinki overland to Moscow and plane to Armenia, Georgia, the Black Sea, and the Ukraine, |
| 1:06.2 | back to Leningrad, and out. |
| 1:09.5 | In 12 years I had opt my average and written Trivia twice. |
| 1:13.0 | Once from Scotland, where the NSA's wisdom posted me at our sub-base, |
| 1:18.0 | and once again from New York, where I hit bottom, |
| 1:20.0 | reviewing my kind of trash for an arts rag. |
| 1:23.0 | Trivia had not replied, but Tina had, |
| 1:25.0 | enclosing pictures of their baby the first time, |
| 1:28.0 | then there are three babies the second time. |
| 1:30.0 | Her notes were warm and slightly vague. |
| 1:33.0 | We are, well, hope you are. |
... |
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