Richard Cox - House of the Rising Sun

This novel was already written and had been through several rounds of editing before the virus that causes COVID-19 began to propagate across the globe. As I write this in March 2020, 657,960 cases have been reported worldwide resulting in 30,434 deaths. By the time the book is published, the number of people impacted by the pandemic will have increased by an amount that is tragic and difficult to contemplate.

While the story you’re about to read has nothing to do with a virus, there are scenes and themes in the story that resemble the reality we currently face and may still be facing when you read it. But don’t expect the characters in these pages to be aware of those similarities: The book was too far into the publication process to begin another rewrite that could capture the context of the pandemic. Also, the events described were meant to take place in 2020, so I have removed references to the current calendar year to avoid confusion.

The major set pieces in this novel tend toward disaster and chaos and confusion, but more importantly the story explores the reactions of ordinary, flawed people to a reality turned upside down. I hope it provides a bit of escape during this surreal time. I hope you and those close to you are safe and healthy.

When I turned eighteen, my dad wanted to buy me a special gift to mark the occasion. Every autumn since I was ten he’d taken me bird hunting, so the gift he had in mind was a shotgun I could call my own.

By then I had been writing short stories for seven years, first in longhand and later on an ancient electric typewriter that produced a hum so powerful I could feel it in my fingertips. The typewriter was a hand-me-down from my grandmother, who for years had written articles for the Olney Enterprise. I was a shy kid and never spoke to my parents about writing stories. It did not seem like the kind of industrious work they wanted for their firstborn son: sitting at a desk all day, imagining other worlds.

But even if my parents didn’t seem like fans of the liberal arts, they were hardly restrictive when it came to the interests of their children. Not once during my years at home did they forbid me from reading anything, even when I graduated to adult fiction at age twelve.

Still, I was stunned when my dad asked if I would prefer a new typewriter to the shotgun. I couldn’t believe he’d noticed all the time I spent writing, and it was even more difficult to picture my salt-of-the-earth father standing in an aisle at Sears, mulling over which typewriter to buy. I accepted the gift and used it to write one bad story after another, applying the fierce determination I inherited from him toward a goal that seemed so distant and farfetched it might as well have been fantasy.

Today I understand my parents were more into the arts than I believed at the time. Every Sunday morning my dad played classical music at thunderous volume on his B&O turntable, and my mom enjoyed the albums of Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings until she wore the magnetic tape to shreds. As a teenager I pretended to loathe any song my parents loved, especially the “oldies,” but there was one exception: “House of the Rising Sun” as performed by The Animals. This favorite of my dad’s became one of mine as well, and I wanted to someday write a novel with the same title. I couldn’t say what this story would be about, and I wasn’t sure how I would ever fit a novel to a predetermined title, but once the idea planted itself it wouldn’t go away.

My dad likes to tell whoever will listen that writing a book seems impossible. He believes my aptitude for it is nothing that could have come from him. But the difference between being an aspiring author and a published one is largely a matter of effort, and I would never have sold one novel (let alone five) without emulating the work ethic I learned at home.

Just like my others, this novel would not have been published if it weren’t for the support and guidance of my friend and agent, Matt Bialer. Oren Eades provided shrewd editorial insight and the project is much better for it. Christine Herman’s notes on an early draft proved invaluable.

Also, a special thank you to my wife, Kimberly, for her patience while I worked on this story for what seemed like forever (“Just get to the DC already!”). I’m proud to be your husband. And to Dillan and Milou, my two precious daughters, for sleeping late on weekends. It’s a privilege every day to be your father. Also thanks to everyone who read this story while it was still a manuscript.

And anyone who purchases the book or checks it out from the library.

You guys rock.

It must have been a malfunction, a breaker failing to interrupt the powerful current of his self-loathing, that had produced such a dark and unnatural state. Even now, as he washed down the last of the Xanax with a deep swallow of Jack Daniels, Seth could not ignore the relentless and magnetic pull of survival. It seemed to originate from all bearings, but most noticeably from the direction of the car door, which he imagined was speaking to him. Open me, the door seemed to whisper. Don’t be selfish.

But as powerful as it was, the instinct to survive was being overridden by an even mightier force: compulsion. For as long as he could remember, Seth had been ruled by the desire to satisfy whatever cravings were most insistent at any moment in time, no matter the cost to himself or those he loved. It was probably ironic how the same compulsion that had driven him into this dark place would now stop him from saving himself, but Seth was not the kind of thinker who could place his actions into a broader context. He was beholden, simply, uncritically, to his impulses.

Seth had always been ashamed of this weakness and had long waited for the moment when his moral debt would be called in. Even as a child he carried dread around with him the way other children carried blankets or pillows. He sucked his thumb during the day and at night curled under the covers, resigned to nightmares as eventual as the rising sun. The problem wasn’t that he committed shameful acts. The problem was he couldn’t stop committing them.

In high school people were amused by the gambling. The Texas 5-A state football playoffs began with 64 teams, and during his freshman year Seth decided to track the bracket on a rectangle of white poster board. His construction was meticulous. He drew it with drafting tools. And once he’d inscribed all the school names in their proper places, Seth showed it to one of his buddies.

Who remarked, innocently enough, Hey, we could use that to bet with.

To that point he’d never been a popular kid, but when word got out about the bracket it seemed like everyone knew Seth’s name. Coaches played, teachers played, and what seemed like half the student body. The success of this gambling operation even impressed his father, which was more rewarding than newfound fame at school. Smaller and less accomplished than his older brother, not pretty like his little sister, Seth felt unspecial and largely ignored. The rare smile on his father’s face was an endorsement Seth never expected but was ecstatic to have earned…even if that smile was now a distant memory.

Had there been any way out of this despair, any lever to pull, he would have done it. Every night he prayed and begged for forgiveness. Every day he imagined a miraculous, last-minute reprieve from his suffering, from the burden of his debt. He pictured this absolution as a lightning bolt from the sky, as divine intervention, but his prayers went unanswered. Seth was down to his last chip. He’d placed it on the table.