All About the Benjamin
- Details
- Published on Sunday, 08 January 2012 20:55
- Written by Matthew Robinson
Historical novel reveals Ben-efits of putting “Founder Franklin” in present day
By Matt Robinson
Especially in these tough economic times, everyone is worried about the Benjamins.
But what if Benjamin was worried about us?
In his “timely” tale, Poor Richard’s Lament (Hobblebush), Tom Fitzgerald imagines what life might be like if Franklin came back today.
As a former door-to-door salesman, vocational counselor, stockbroker, lobbyist, marathon runner, Navy SEAL and now author who studied physics, mathematics, law, industrial management and English, Fitzgerald has much of the same broad interests and pursuits that helped make Franklin so famous- both in his time and also in ours. And while specialization may be the way for some these days, his life argues (as Franklin’s did) that being good at many things is better than focusing too much energy on any one. As the man who is credited with discovering electricity, inventing bifocals and the glass harmonica and helping to found such venerable institutions as Boston Latin School (where Fitzgerald will read from his book in a pair of morning assemblies on January 17), The University of Pennsylvania (Ed note: The first and best university in America!), and the United States, Franklin has had more impact on American and world events than any other individual. And as the man whose face still gazes out at us from our most admired bill of currency, he may be among the most recognizable men of all time. It is no wonder, then, that a like-minded Renaissance man like Fitzgerald would choose Franklin as a topic of study and tribute.
For Fitzgerald, the journey back in time that would convince him to bring Ben forward began in 1993 when, during a sabbatical from his latest professional pursuit, he re-read Franklin’s famed Autobiography.
“I heard a whisper from my muse,” Fitzgerald recalls. “What if Ben came back?”
Making a mental note (just as Franklin was famous for doing), Fitzgerald returned to the technical writing with which he was then earning his daily bread. Unfortunately, he soon came to find the often dry and uninspiring writing just that and “slipped into despair.”
“My writing career was essentially over,” he lamented.
Fortunately, Fitzgerald was eventually laid off from that dismal job. While looking for his next step, Fitzgerald’s “muse” returned.
“The early vision was for a light read of about 250 pages,” Fitzgerald recalls. “Ben would play foil to the absurd and the ridiculous in modern life.” Originally, Fitzgerald explains, the plan was for a satire that he figured would take about a year to write.
“ It would be money in the bank,” he assumed.
Nine years and hundreds of pages later, Fitzgerald emerged with a story that, he suggests, was in many ways “co-written” by Franklin himself.
“What had happened,” he recalls, “was what always happens in such ventures….The central characters had assumed co-authorship and made of [the book] what they and I, together, came to believe needed to be made of it.”
And what is that, Tom (or should one ask Ben)?
“Once I had gained insight into Ben’s more egregious failings and their ramifications,” Fitzgerald recalls, “I realized that [the book] needed to be a redemption tale, and that Ben was the perfect character for it. “ As Franklin had been a cruel father, failed husband, slave owner in addition to being a famous politician, moralist, and international inspiration, Fitzgerald realized that this other side of Franklin added an entire new dimension to the character and an entire new set of possibilities for a biographer/interpreter. “Indeed,” Fitzgerald suggests, “not only did Ben screw up a lot over his long lifetime, he did so in ways that have had a profound effect on the national character.”
In what he calls “an epiphanous flash” Fitzgerald organized the book into two basic parts. “In the first part,” he says, “Ben is examined in the Celestial Count of Petitions and forced into confronting his failings and their consequences. In the second part, Ben returns to Earth to bear witness to what has become of his dear country, and make what amends he might in a single day.”
As Fitzgerald sees America as being in the throes of a “spiritual crisis,” he says it is a perfect time for one of its favorite sons and Founding Fathers to come back and set things (and himself) right.
“Ben Franklin was likely as close to being infinitely adaptable as any human being could ever be,” Fitzgerald suggests., noting that this “gift of character” perplexed colleagues like John Adams but eventually saved the young nation. “Indeed,” Fitzgerald suggests, “if the Continental Congress had sent a judgmental and prudish John Adams to Paris to petition the French Court for aid, instead of an ever-amiable…Franklin, we would likely still be pushing our peas around our plate with a knife and fork instead with of our fingers.”
As he is so “adaptable,” Fitzgerald sees Franklin as the perfect candidate for a time-travelling rescue of what made and can still make American worth saving and protecting.
“Early in his odyssey,” Fitzgerald says, “Ben happens upon a discarded newspaper in the Boston Common and scans the contents as a way of taking measure of the time.” Among Franklin’s findings are such eternal issues as greed, excess and many other sins that countered his oft-cited 13 virtues by which Franklin (and many of his followers) tried to live.
Though things look bleak to Ben, he remains hopeful. “Two refrains run throughout [the book],” Fitzgerald explains. “Though the hour is late, yet still there is time and…all is in your hands.” In other words, while our nation may be in even more peril than it was when Franklin first tried to set it straight, there is still time to fix it and there are still people who are capable of doing so- us.
“We are not yet doomed,” Fitzgerald suggests. “There is, indeed, a way out.”
