Hardihood Books Roundup - July 2024
Independence Month
Hi,
Welcome to the Hardihood Books July Roundup. For American readers, I hope you had a good Independence Day. For my international readers, I hope you’ll indulge this little yearly celebration of ours. For readers anywhere, I hope summer is treating you well.
What I Published in July:
I began the month with a public essay on “American Exceptionalism,” and followed that up with a paywalled essay on “The American Culture of Self-Improvement.” The first essay is better. Many readers think that “exceptionalism” refers to America’s self-image as a shining city on a hill, but it was actually coined by Soviet spies to explain why American culture was uniquely resistant to communism. Because our culture emphasized individualism and lacked both a feudal past and a stratified class system common to Europe, few Americans were particularly interested in joining world communism. In my essay, I explore a little of what individualism has meant throughout American history, with examples from both right (capitalism, anticommunism, etc.) and left (egalitarianism, radical self-expression, etc.).
I followed that up with the final installment in, If You Can Keep It, my short fantasy novel set in a world resembling Ancient Rome. No, it isn’t meant to be exactly like the Roman Republic, just as Middle Earth and Westeros aren’t meant to be Britain, even as they bear conscious similarities. This meant that I could take liberties with legal and judicial procedures, which only need to make sense within the context of the fictional world of the story and do not need to match Roman history. The title is taken, of course, from the famous quotation by Ben Franklin. When asked what sort of government the Constitutional Convention had established, he said, “A Republic, if you can keep it.”
After that, we had the next installment of, Civilization in the Wilderness, which picked up after last month’s cliffhanger ending. I know I said I was going to do two different novellas at a time from here on out, but I think I’ll skip next month (we will have three short stories instead) and start up with a new novella to replace If You Can Keep It in September.
My two short stories this month were two separate installments of the same story, which I had to break into two given the length. Whether or not this counts as a deviation from my publishing schedule, it is one which isn’t too out of the ordinary. “In the Summertime,” is a fantasy story, the final story in the series of four stories which began with “Into the Wilderness.” The motif which hangs them all together is seasonal change. “Into the Wilderness” was an autumnal story. “Out of the Wilderness” was a spring story. “Out in the Cold” was a winter story. And now this one completes the set. I think it gets more obvious what the stories are about if you read the four together, however I doubt any readers will fully grasp the meaning. The order of the stories follows the pattern of the seasons – first fall, then winter, then spring, then summer – with the decades passing between the first and second and third and a decade between the third and fourth. I still like “Into the Wilderness” the best, even though it lacks a plot. “In the Summertime” turned out much darker than I expected and I had to keep it from veering into the horror genre. In the end, it was more sad than scary, but it still wasn’t the happy, summer story I was expecting. I still stand by it and think it fits.
From the Archive:
Last years, “Peace in Our Time” and 2021’s post-apocalyptic novella “After America” are worth a read.
In Closing:
Please feel free to email me with any feedback. If you’re on the free list and you’d like to respond to one of my stories or essays, you can email me, or reach out via Twitter (@benconnelly6712) or LinkedIn (which I rarely check).
Thank you for reading and subscribing.
Cheers,
Ben Connelly