Review by Cheryl Ann Passanisi
Reckonings
by Thomas Farber
El León Literary Arts
January 2026, 82 pages, ISBN-13: 979-8987371879
Gluttony, depravity, amour propre (autoeroticism), TDS, DJT, # 47, July 4th, 2025, birthdays, Testaments: How do we reckon with or come to terms with a dystopian universe visited upon us (and upon the world) through the auspices and infinite wisdom of our country men and women who elected, to a second term, the current occupant of the Oval Office, now sufficiently gold plated?
Personally, the idea of July 4th, 2025, the first 4th of July after this afore mentioned catastrophic election, the 249th birthday of the Declaration of Independence, was sufficiently disturbing to me that I felt the need to leave the country and I was on my way to Ireland (not forever but for a couple weeks).
Farber tries out various “Reckonings”: different ways to resolve the puzzle that has eluded so many who have struggled to comprehend this event in our shared history. Are we all suffering from TDS (Trump derangement syndrome)? Do those who defend him suffer from “TES” (“Trump Explanation Syndrome”)? Is DJT the Antichrist after all; a false Messiah? Is it like the Robert Louis Stevenson story: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: “DJT the monstruous Mr. Hyde without his better half, respectable Dr. Jekyll”? Or is this the domain of psychologists: “…a narcissist, malignant narcissist, psychopath, sociopath. Suffers from a histrionic personality disorder”?
A year and a half into this administration with so many deaths of innocents at the hands of ICE agents in American cities, we have all been sufficiently traumatized and earned the right to ask our brothers and sisters: “What were you thinking?” Not to mention the abolishment of USAID and the deaths of innocents, women and children, on other continents, Africa.
Farber reminds us about the genesis of DJT’s obsession to become president: “… the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner, live audience of 2,500-plus, Obama mocks Trump, champion of the born-in-Africa ‘birther’ conspiracy. Derided, DJT silent, eating shit.”
DJT a sharp contrast to the first black man elected president of the USA: “Obama: not perfect, but a Black guy in America with academic achievement, verbal wit, grace. Slim, trim, Family man. Writes his own books! Deflating, a living reproach to a born-rich/perennial-fuckup White male.”
The campaign promise: “I am your retribution. I am your retribution”. What could good Christian folk be thinking? The Bible I have read and studied all my life:
“Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves… for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Romans 12:19. So #47, DJT, set out to destroy a system that audaciously allows a Black man to tease an old rich White man – no matter old rich White guy pushed lies about the Black man’s birth and legitimacy to be president. (What?)
And so innocents suffer here in city streets, on other continents and our future selves and progeny in the form of research that was aborted and funding stopped that could help to identify contagious disease and cures here and abroad. So we all suffer: “eat shit”.
This is all so painful to behold and contain in our collective imaginings, but we must in order to save ourselves and our country. Farber eases us along with musings and contemplative prose poems/creative nonfiction passages that are paired with awesome Renaissance and Enlightenment art by Hieronymus Bosch, William Blake and others. The ghoulish images are at first glance beautiful but on closer examination reveal the horrors of hell: demons, with relish, eating human beings whole, ogres torturing men and women or beetle-like monsters holding several humans in their mouth at once, jaws gaping, ready to insert more of the doomed and damned.
Similar to trompe l’oeil – to trick or deceive the eye: the images draw you in and consume you before you realize the demonic nature illustrated. Perhaps a slight metaphor of our present state of affairs and how we came to fine ourselves here. Not just a red state/blue state problem: we all share the blame and that is why it is imperative to determine how it all went so wrong.
Farber turned 80 in 2024 and incorporates that milestone into his musings while preparing the manuscript about a man, #47, DJT, around his same age and, during the writing, soon to turn 80.
He writes: “Not unusual aspects of humans getting older. More tolerant of others. Rue; self-reproach. Has DJT ever been contrite? For all of us olders, regretful or not, the foreseeable.”
He then goes on to fantasize all the ways DJT could meet his end:
Overcome by a wave in deep sea; fall flat on his face climbing the stairs of Air Force One (like other presidents), prostate cancer, “post-stroke wheelchair-bound”, “suicide by pistol”, “kidney-stone misery”, Bell’s Palsey…
He cleverly conveys the toxicity of DJT’s posts on “Truth” Social by describing how Espinosa was treated:
“The rabbis of Amsterdam cursed and damned him for ‘evil ways’ & ‘monstrous deeds’, proclaiming that ‘no one should communicate with him neither in writing nor accord him any favor nor stay with him under the same roof nor within four cubits in his vicinity; nor …read any treatise…by him.’”
Isn’t this how someone who has repeatedly posted lies be treated? Demonstrable lies with tapes of him saying what he said he didn’t say or which a little research reveals as proven falsehoods? Someone undaunted by the shame of being caught red handed; someone who has no conscience or fear of exposure but who is emboldened by his privilege:
“So: vituperatio. What can/should a writer do to/with an autocrat-in-process who’s survived a Big Mac diet, lawsuits, bankruptcies, Covid-19, impeachments & assassination attempts? DJT didn’t ask to be born, can’t help being who he is? But no comeuppance?”
Indeed. And with a Supreme Court who basically ruled him beyond reproach. And twitchy timid senators afraid to vote for impeachment.
Sometimes there are no words to convey the dysphoric, jaw-dropping disbelief and profound discomposure at the boldness and impunity with which this administration has conducted their dark deeds of racism, misogyny and greed. But a good image comes close:
Crows exiting the anus of a human while being consumed by a hideous demon seems an apt surrealistic syllogism or nightmarish conclusion. (Hieronymus Bosch, Garden of Earthly Delights, Triptych, detail)
Throughout the book are quotes or vignettes from popular celebrities and writers of all ages. Farber summarizes the conditions that gave rise to DJT by quoting Vitriolic H.L. Mencken’s definition of democracy:
“’the worship of jackals by jackasses.’ MAGA world: decline of white relative superiority. The dispossessed: people left behind or feeling left behind. Boomer DJT, Nostalgist-in-Chief: everything better back then. Reassuringly familiar family loudmouth: mouthin’ off, runnin’ his mouth, how males are. Crude, but not actin’ superior. Of course men say they want to ‘Grab them by the…’” (emphasis mine)
Later:
“Resentful: injured party, martyr. The victim –WITCH HUNT!!! About not yet getting the Nobel Prize…”
Again, trying to best the Black man who preceded him. The absurdity continues:
“Evangelicals believe in only one god. However, since their god exists as a Trinity—Father, Son (Jesus Christ), Holy Spirit—a Quaternity is an obvious alternative. DJT simply makin’ the world to come like ‘foursome golf’”.
Perfect in demonstrating the absurdity of Religious Right thinking that “God” answered their prayers by sending the forsaken DJT to be US President #47 and lead us all out of darkness. Or perhaps the joke is on us and they were really praying for retribution of their own.
But Farber, ever questioning his questioning and ever struggling with the moral dilemma of wishing ill on enemies or would we, should we, save the evil human if drowning, reminds us:
“Latin lapis, stone: lapidary, lapis lazuli. Lapidation: death by stoning. In the Gospel of John, Jesus tells Pharisees condemning an adulteress that the one of you without sin should be the first to throw a stone at her. Moral of the story? Reflect before judging. Think forgiveness. Thank you, Jesus.”
About the reviewer: Cheryl Ann Passanisi was born and raised on the central coast of California and went to school at California State University, Long Beach, and University of California, San Francisco where she earned a master’s degree in Nursing. She lives on the San Francisco peninsula and works at a teaching hospital as a nurse practitioner. She is active in local community theater and opera chorus.