Michael Boylan’s Archē Series
(The Archē Series seeks to explore philosophical themes within the context of varying novelistic structures that endeavors to define some of the major directions of that fiction form.)
Naked Reverse. (January, 2016)
There’s a secret back door to the Ivory Tower. Follow college professor Andrew Viam through that secret passageway as he goes on an Odyssey into the real world full of love and violence. Will he survive? This is an open question. He falls for a woman, but then she’s running away from a boyfriend who’s into Organized Crime and wants her back. From the tough city streets of Chicago to the wild woods of Wisconsin, Andrew will have to call on new resources if he wants to make it alive to next term. It’s a summer break he’d never experienced—and hopefully never will again. The presentation mode is conventional time sequence narrative. The overarching philosophical position is achieving personal authenticity via action consistent with the personal worldview imperative.
ISBN 978-1-5137-06726
Georgia (in three parts, 2016-2017)
What does the novel look like as epic? Georgia uses this structural device to explore racial identity in the state of Georgia between 1900-1930. John Dow, is an orphan of unknown parentage who is discovered by a wealthy farmer, Samuel Beauchay, who operates what used to be a cotton plantation that used slave labor. The farmer raises Dow almost as if he were his own son. The problem for John and those around him during his upbringing of privilege is whether he is black. Racial identity was very important in the rural town of Varner’s Junction. John’s real upbringing comes at the hand of Jefferson John Brown who is one of the first African Americans to receive a degree in philosophy at an Ivy League University. A series of disasters brings Jefferson back to Varner’s Junction where he had been born. He now runs Samuel Beauchay’s farm for him. A murder, a fugitive, threats of lynching create a fast pace against the back drop of the decay of the Old South. Join along to be a partner in history and discover who-done-it! The presentation mode contains the machinery of the epic as developed in the Western Tradition. The overarching philosophical position concerns the search for personal identity, race, and the shared community worldview of an unstable racist society.
T-Rx: The History of a Radical Leader (2018)
During the late 1960s there was a feeling among some young people that the United States was on the verge of a revolution. The Vietnam War, Civil Rights, new social mores all contributed to a situation in which a counter-culture evolved. This book explores the story of one counter-culture group led by a man who called himself, T-Rx. Enter into this world of those who seek to turn the world upside down. Watch as the FBI tries to stop them. How far can revolution go? Is it ever a good thing? Wasn’t the United States founded upon revolution? The presentation mode is epistolary. The overarching philosophical position concerns the parallel positions of the extent of individual liberty within an established democratic society and an examination of consent respecting the existing legal system.
The Long Fall of the Ball from the Wall (2019)
Human history in the West is sometimes parsed via the Enlightenment as offering an individualistic perspective that countered the existing communitarian worldview. I have examined this historical change via direct discourse in chapters 2 & 3 of Natural Human Rights: A Theory (Cambridge, 2014). As fictive narrative philosophy this theoretical construct is examined in term of the early 1960s through the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This novel examines a hypothetical 2nd gunman behind the grassy knoll and how his personal struggles mirror the larger themes of individual liberty and perceived government/social oppression. The novel is told via the presentation mode of discontinuous narrative. The overarching philosophical position concerns the dialectical interactions between the role of a given individual and the society at large. How do these interactions affect free will and determinism?
(The Archē Series seeks to explore philosophical themes within the context of varying novelistic structures that endeavors to define some of the major directions of that fiction form.)
Naked Reverse. (January, 2016)
There’s a secret back door to the Ivory Tower. Follow college professor Andrew Viam through that secret passageway as he goes on an Odyssey into the real world full of love and violence. Will he survive? This is an open question. He falls for a woman, but then she’s running away from a boyfriend who’s into Organized Crime and wants her back. From the tough city streets of Chicago to the wild woods of Wisconsin, Andrew will have to call on new resources if he wants to make it alive to next term. It’s a summer break he’d never experienced—and hopefully never will again. The presentation mode is conventional time sequence narrative. The overarching philosophical position is achieving personal authenticity via action consistent with the personal worldview imperative.
ISBN 978-1-5137-06726
Georgia (in three parts, 2016-2017)
What does the novel look like as epic? Georgia uses this structural device to explore racial identity in the state of Georgia between 1900-1930. John Dow, is an orphan of unknown parentage who is discovered by a wealthy farmer, Samuel Beauchay, who operates what used to be a cotton plantation that used slave labor. The farmer raises Dow almost as if he were his own son. The problem for John and those around him during his upbringing of privilege is whether he is black. Racial identity was very important in the rural town of Varner’s Junction. John’s real upbringing comes at the hand of Jefferson John Brown who is one of the first African Americans to receive a degree in philosophy at an Ivy League University. A series of disasters brings Jefferson back to Varner’s Junction where he had been born. He now runs Samuel Beauchay’s farm for him. A murder, a fugitive, threats of lynching create a fast pace against the back drop of the decay of the Old South. Join along to be a partner in history and discover who-done-it! The presentation mode contains the machinery of the epic as developed in the Western Tradition. The overarching philosophical position concerns the search for personal identity, race, and the shared community worldview of an unstable racist society.
T-Rx: The History of a Radical Leader (2018)
During the late 1960s there was a feeling among some young people that the United States was on the verge of a revolution. The Vietnam War, Civil Rights, new social mores all contributed to a situation in which a counter-culture evolved. This book explores the story of one counter-culture group led by a man who called himself, T-Rx. Enter into this world of those who seek to turn the world upside down. Watch as the FBI tries to stop them. How far can revolution go? Is it ever a good thing? Wasn’t the United States founded upon revolution? The presentation mode is epistolary. The overarching philosophical position concerns the parallel positions of the extent of individual liberty within an established democratic society and an examination of consent respecting the existing legal system.
The Long Fall of the Ball from the Wall (2019)
Human history in the West is sometimes parsed via the Enlightenment as offering an individualistic perspective that countered the existing communitarian worldview. I have examined this historical change via direct discourse in chapters 2 & 3 of Natural Human Rights: A Theory (Cambridge, 2014). As fictive narrative philosophy this theoretical construct is examined in term of the early 1960s through the assassination of John F. Kennedy. This novel examines a hypothetical 2nd gunman behind the grassy knoll and how his personal struggles mirror the larger themes of individual liberty and perceived government/social oppression. The novel is told via the presentation mode of discontinuous narrative. The overarching philosophical position concerns the dialectical interactions between the role of a given individual and the society at large. How do these interactions affect free will and determinism?
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