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5 days ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Andrew Klavan
Spence!Many years ago, I was writing a crime novel in which mobsters buried a man in the concrete foundation of a building. That way, once the building was erected, the corpse would never be found. I wanted the scene to be realistic, but how could you do the necessary research in that pre-internet age? I was sitting alone at a Christmas party when a stranger sat down next to me and started a conversation. He said he was in the construction business. So I asked him my question.
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1 week ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Andrew Klavan
One of the sources of our current dissatisfaction is the ever-lengthening list of things you’re not supposed to say. The polite restraint of decency has been weaponized for political purposes until the simple truth about any number of subjects has been deemed unspeakable. Not long ago, I was pilloried by the pillory people for a perfectly reasonable remark. I was ranting against movie/TV scenes in which women beat up men. They are not just absurd but also dangerous.
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1 week ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Spencer Klavan
Dad,There’s a meme I love that just shows a handle of Jack Daniels wrapped in the dust jacket of That Hideous Strength, the novel of elite corruption by C.S. Lewis that you mentioned.
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1 week ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Andrew Klavan
Spench. In the recent HBO miniseries White Lotus, the mother of a wealthy family tells her daughter, “We’re lucky, it’s true. No one in the history of the world has lived better than we have, even the old kings and queens. The least we can do is enjoy it. If we don’t, it’s offensive.”It is true. It’s offensive not to enjoy our freedom and prosperity in general.
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1 week ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Spencer Klavan
Dad,Alright, enough politics. Back to God. Not that our little detour into the gutter wasn’t charming and edifying. It was a reminder—lest we get fat and happy and forget—that we live in a mosh pit at best and a killing field at worst. American Christians are more liable than maybe any others in history to mistake their own comfort and safety for the normal state of the world. Good problem to have! May it never be solved.
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2 weeks ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Spencer Klavan
Our discussion this week about the fiasco surrounding Joe Biden’s cancer diagnosis, and the retrospectives on his cognitive decline, reminded me how bizarre the Biden years were for an American who grew up knowing who was in charge. You may not have liked the Bush or the Obama or the Trump presidency, but you knew it was Bush, or Obama, or Trump you didn’t like. That’s kind of the point of elective government, or at least it was supposed to be.
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2 weeks ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Spencer Klavan
Dad,Egads! The Democrats! I had almost forgotten about them. I’m sure they’d prefer we all did, at this point. Ineffectiveness and obscurity would be better than whatever the hell this train wreck is that we’re watching now. It feels indecent even to discuss, like commenting on someone’s unsightly facial deformity. But I suppose we must. What truly amazes me is that people like Jake Tapper and Joy Behar still consider themselves authorities on when it’s appropriate to talk about what.
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2 weeks ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Andrew Klavan
Sponsor. I hate to do this, but I feel compelled to interrupt our high-minded conversations about art and evil and good and God in order to talk politics. One of my less attractive qualities is that I find corruption funny. I know it does great harm. I know it deforms the souls of those who participate in it. But when I consider what mankind was made to be, and when I see what it so often is, it’s like watching a man in a tuxedo fall into a mud puddle. It’s slapstick. It’s hilarious.
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2 weeks ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Spencer Klavan
Dad,I have this problem that my happiest and most exciting days are also the most boring to talk about. Say I get dinner with a friend. He opens the conversation like everyone does: what’s new with you? And somehow that basic question leaves me gaping like a fish. What’s new? Well…nothing. And everything!! I sat at my desk and wrote my book, I went to the gym, I made dinner. But the work was an adventure and the dinner was bliss. How to put that into words?
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2 weeks ago | 
thenewjerusalem.substack.com | Andrew Klavan
Spengler. We’ve been talking about murderers and villainy: how they cannot help but point to the good because life is sacred and man’s essential nature is loving. Otherwise, we would not know evil when we saw it. But there is an argument that seems to contradict that. The question a crime writer is asked probably more often than any other is this: Why are villains in stories more compelling than heroes?