Varina

by Charles Frazier

Subtract everything inessential from America and what’s left? —Geography and political philosophy, V says. The Declaration and Constitution. The Federalist Papers. —I’d say geography and mythology, James says. Our legends. He gives examples, talks about Columbus sailing past the edge of the world, John Smith at Jamestown and Puritans at Plymouth Rock, conquering the howling wilderness. Benjamin Franklin going from rags to riches with the help of a little slave trading, Frederick Douglass escaping to freedom, the assassination of Lincoln, annexing the West. All those stories that tell us who we are—stories of exploration, freedom, slavery, and always violence. We keep clutching those things, or at least worn-out images of them, like idols we can’t quit worshipping.

Violence is the story of America