Halcyon by Elliot Ackerman

Published by Knopf on May 23, 2023

Halcyon is a novel of profound questions. When does the damage of compromise outweigh the benefit of national unity? When is sacrifice a better choice than life? Can the past be corrected? Is it forgotten if we choose not to remember details we can’t accept? When life extends beyond its logic, is there any reason for it to continue? What is it that we inherit from the dead?

Halcyon is an alternate history that begins with a contemplation of alternate histories. Martin Neumann is an historian who specializes in the Civil War. He wonders what would have happened if Stonewall Jackson hadn’t been killed and the South had prevailed at Gettysburg. Yet Martin lives in a history that differs from our own. Bill Clinton was convicted of perjury for lying about Monica Lewinsky. Al Gore became the next president because the Supreme Court didn’t hand Florida to Bush. Gore didn’t lead the country into war with Iraq but, freed from distraction, tracked down and killed bin Laden. Gore pardoned Clinton and is in danger of losing the next election, a rematch with Bush.

The alternate history comes across as a thought experiment rather than a background that is integral to the plot. The point seems to be that changing a fact here and there will change history, while the forces that shape history aren’t so easily changed. Bush will eventually invade Iraq and destroy the economy, leading to Obama’s election.

Another science fiction theme is also a background element. Scientists have learned to revive “Lazarus mice” after they die, giving them a second life. Martin is renting a guest house as he writes a book about the Civil War. The guest house is owned by Robert Abelson, a retired civil rights lawyer. Although it has been kept secret from the public and even from Robert’s children, Abelson participated in a study to revive the dead. He’s a success story, a 90-year-old man who looks 50 after his resurrection.

When the news of successful resurrections breaks, Gore bases his reelection campaign on a promise to fund resurrections for people who can’t afford them. Bush questions whether the science is real and vows to ban resurrection research, echoing (in our history) his ban of federal funds for stem cell research.

Robert and Martin have long talks in the evenings before Martin learns of Robert’s resurrection. Some of their talks are about the Civil War. Martin’s book addresses Shelby Foote’s notion that America made a compromise after the war ended. In a new spirit of unity, residents of former Confederate states would pretend not to be traitors while the rest of the country would praise them for fighting with passion about a cause in which they believed. That the cause was slavery cannot be mentioned; that’s fundamental to the compromise. Martin believes the compromise was essential to reuniting the nation, a point of view that has fallen out of favor as historians have become less willing to support the celebration of the Confederacy.

To the extent that Halcyon has a plot, it begins with a movement to remove a statute of Lee at Gettysburg. Thousands of people have signed petitions. When they are delivered during a massive protest, Robert points out their legal flaws and they are rejected. The person who spearheaded the petition drive wants revenge on Robert. She sues him on dubious grounds and wants his will to be nullified so that assets distributed to his wife and children will be available to pay the judgment. The legal theory underlying the lawsuit is shaky but so is the idea of resurrection, so it’s best to let the details slide.

Martin’s long friendship with another historian — a man from Mississippi who feels the Confederacy in his bones — is jeopardized when, during a visit to Gettysburg, Martin learns that his friend agrees with removing Lee’s monument. They have a long discussion about change that forms the novel’s intellectual core. Martin eventually realizes that history is personal to his friend, that it’s part of his family history, and that removing the monument might cleanse a troubling stain.

Martin’s initial sense is that the monument is part of history and history doesn’t change. He views the monument as a natural outgrowth of Shelby’s view of post-war compromise; a means of letting the South replace the shame of insurrection with the glory of having fought the good fight. Martin comes to understand that removing the monument isn’t about change. It’s about letting go of the past. Making a fresh start might be what the nation needs. It might be what Martin needs as he struggles to write a book that is founded on a premise he begins to question.

There is, of course, more to Martin’s life. His ex-wife is a lawyer who plays a role in one of the novel’s legal battles. The book ends with another contemplation of alternate histories, a collection of “what ifs.” Martin makes decisions about where his life should go, turning a “what if” into a “why not.”

Halcyon is a collection of interesting concepts, any of which could be the foundation for a novel. A character prefers to live a life of grievance rather than forgiving a perceived transgression. A character who could choose resurrection instead chooses death to resolve a family problem. The morality of resurrection has been explored in other novels. Elliot Ackerman addresses it as a political issue that divides Bush and Gore without weighing its philosophical implications.

The strongest concept and the one most central to the story questions the immutability of the past. Historical facts don’t change but some are forgotten and the importance assigned to others fluctuates with time. Perhaps all histories are alternate histories, different versions of the past that depend on how we interpret them.

The novel ends with a surprise that really isn’t. The plot never quite takes off, but Halcyon is more a novel of ideas than a story that depends on plot development. I’m not sure most book clubs are interested in books that lack a strong plot, but Ackerman probes so many ideas that book clubs with an intellectual bent might want to put Halcyon high on their reading list.

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