State of Mind by John Katzenbach deserves to be considered a modern classic. It’s a powerful dark novel that challenges, thrills, scares and entertains.
First published in 1997 it takes a futuristic look at America in the 2030s and the picture is not a pretty one. Society has totally decayed; violence rules and child killers roam with impunity.
The main character is Professor Jeffrey Clayton, who lectures in psychology (aberrant behavior, ironically) at a second-rate university. His special interest is psychotic killers.
Jeffrey’s sister Susan writes puzzles for a Miami newspaper. Their mother took them away from their father early in life. She feared he was a dangerous man, possibly a killer. She learns that he died, but never believes it, and continues to live in concealment.
The backdrop to this tale is a social and political development in America’s west. Big corporations and wealthy individuals, frustrated by societal breakdown, buy huge tracts of land to establish a new territory, where the rules are different.
People living there have to sign away constitutional rights to free speech and privacy, in exchange for which they live safe, secure and generally happy. There is no crime and few of the problems that plague the rest of America. The territory is on the verge of gaining statehood as the story unfolds.
A spanner in the works is the emergence of an evil murderer in the “51st state”. Authorities know of at least 20 killings attributed to the man, but each crime is hidden and explained away to maintain the myth of safety and perfection.
Professor Clayton is called upon to help catch the killer. He soon learns that investigators believe his father, supposedly dead, is responsible. Indeed he was. Police and politicians in the new state use Jeffrey Clayton as bait to lure his father out of hiding.
Having discovered the whereabouts of his family, the father makes indirect contact, which haunts and terrifies, especially the mother Diana.
It emerges that a game is being played between the family members. Will Jeffrey find his father before his father finds him? Will the father kill his son and ex-wife? Will the puzzle writer (Susan) outwit her super-intelligent father?
Like most crime novels there are elements that appear contrived, but the ending in this case is a ripper. I won’t give it away here.
Katzenbach is a talented writer. I especially like the way he goes beyond the storyline to challenge the reader and impart a message.
In State of Mind the reader is asked to ponder if personal liberties should be sacrificed for the greater good if it means a safer world for all.
The simplistic answer is probably yes, but the denial of reality and cover-up of truth in the 51st state raise the spectre of totalitarianism.
Any writer attempting to predict the future runs a risk of appearing foolish if he’s way off beam. The world that Katzenbach foretells in three decades probably won’t transpire, but the message will linger. I believe he’s in an elite class with Huxley and Orwell.
On a minor note the only future guessing that I found irritating was references to electronic mail. In 1997 I suppose “email” hadn’t been coined as the currency for that phrase. It would be worth reprinting this book just to make that alteration.
This was my second novel by John Katzenbach, following The Analyst, and it won’t be my last.
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