Chapter 51: The Essence of Literature

Faced with Asimov's incomprehension, Ernie shrugged, "There is still a bit of it, but as a white man, there are some things I simply cannot experience with true empathy."

Asimov nodded, conceding that Ernie had a point.

Although Ernie was a novelist, he was not, after all, an outsider.

Yet, upon deeper reflection on the wave of critical acclaim that followed the release of Ernie's previous short novel, *Morning Comes*, Asimov felt a profound sense of awe.

The reception of *Morning Comes* had been nothing short of extraordinary, drawing praise from a multitude of literary luminaries:

John Campbell, Fred Pohl, F. M. Eliot, Edward Weeks...

Along with many of Asimov's close friends and fellow science fiction writers—Robert Heinlein, A. E. van Vogt, Theodore Sturgeon, Cleve Cartmill, and Asimov himself.

Even Professor Norman Ramsey, a professor of physics at Columbia University, having read *Morning Comes* upon a colleague's recommendation, went out of his way to publish a review, concluding with this tribute:

"...I admire Mr. Ernie Riser's ambition when tackling cosmic-scale questions; many of his conceptions have provided me with fresh inspiration for my own research. I was once someone who never touched science fiction, but now I have subscribed to *Astounding Stories*, becoming the most loyal reader of this magazine, and the most loyal reader of Mr. Ernie Riser. All of this serves to remind me that the vanguard of science always demands the propulsion of imagination, no matter where that imagination originates."

Without a doubt, once Norman Ramsey's review was published, Ernie had attained the highest possible accolade for a science fiction writer—validation from a physicist.

Yet, what about now?

A publication like *The Saturday Evening Post* had the audacity to employ a cowardly, anonymous persona to attack Ernie's fiction.

The contrast between the two was staggering!

Asimov reminisced about the glory days following the publication of *Morning Comes*. The reason his memory was so vivid was that "Norman Ramsey's review" had actually been facilitated by him—the issue of *Astounding Stories* confiscated by his professor, Professor Edelman, had found its way into Norman Ramsey's hands precisely through Professor Edelman's mediation.

"Actually, I've written a piece to respond to the attack from *The Saturday Evening Post*," Ernie said, drawing two neatly folded sheets of typewriter paper from his breast pocket. The text wasn't long, so he had simply tucked it away, planning to drop by and hand it over to Mr. Weeks after meeting with Asimov.

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" Asimov's mouth split into a grin as he impatiently unfolded the paper and began to read.

The brief article was read through in the blink of an eye. Asimov's face bloomed with a smile as he slapped his thigh, "Good! This is exactly how it should be written.

Although this response of yours isn't long, every single baseless accusation they hurled at you has been directly addressed.

And... it gives me the distinct feeling of reading a graduate thesis. Every issue they raised has been systematically dismantled and countered, backed by powerful, airtight arguments.

*The Saturday Evening Post* could fabricate groundless charges against you first and then launch their assault; but with this piece, can they really manufacture and distort things that actually happened?"

Ernie smiled faintly. "It's a 'response,' not a 'retaliation.' If that anonymous writer feels the pain... it is merely the recoil of his own wild, flailing punches."

Asimov nodded in hearty approval. "Especially since your prose is as hard as a steel plate!"

With their chat concluded, Asimov, ever the loyal friend, stayed behind at the candy store and immediately set to work writing his own piece to counter the critique published in *The Saturday Evening Post*—partly to back up his friend Ernie, and partly to vent his own simmering fury.

Meanwhile, Ernie mounted his bicycle and pedaled toward Houghton Mifflin Publishers.

Seeing Ernie arrive so early in the day to submit his manuscript, Edward Weeks looked somewhat surprised. "You've finished writing it already?"

"The loopholes in the piece criticizing me were far too specific," Ernie replied with a calm smile. "That made crafting a response remarkably easy."

"There is that," Edward Weeks chuckled. It was much like an enemy charging fiercely at you with guns blazing—missing would be harder than hitting.

Edward Weeks invited Ernie to take a seat, poured him a cup of hot tea, and could hardly wait to take the response manuscript from Ernie's hands to begin reading—deeply curious about what kind of literary flair Ernie would display in this arena.

*"Testimony from the Dust,"* Edward Weeks read the title aloud. "That's a powerful title." He could already faintly sense what kind of essay this would turn out to be.

He dove into the text with earnest concentration.

[To *The Saturday Evening Post*: Testimony from the Dust

Your review of *A Bronx Tale* brings to mind a gentleman cautiously prodding a corpse in the street with his walking stick—exhibiting a guarded curiosity while simultaneously refusing a genuine examination out of fear of its filth.

You question the moral grayness of my characters. Yet, gentlemen, when this nation in 1932 witnessed the veterans of the Bonus Army—heroes who had fought in the Argonne Forest—being driven away by cavalry in the mud of Washington, how much credibility remained in simple, neat moral narratives?

You dismiss the racial tensions in my narrative as 'clumsy Broadway melodramas.' Allow me, then, to mention a few place names: Scottsboro, 1931. Nine young Black men accused aboard a freight train, their fates tossed like dead leaves in the gale of racist fury without a shred of evidence. Or Harlem, 1935. A riot ignited by rumors, rooted entirely in years of entrenched poverty and discrimination.

As it turns out, the hostility and terror in my stories were not my own invention. I merely picked up a few discarded editorial pages, soaked in rage, which you chose to ignore.

Your lofty assertion that 'great literature should elevate us' calls to mind those gentlemen sitting in heated conservatories waxing poetic about the winds of the Arctic. When the Wall Street crash of 1929 occurred, did any of that gilded inspirational literature elevate a single veteran selling apples outside a cigar shop? When thirty-seven million Americans were drowning in the mire of the Great Depression, what they needed was not to be 'elevated,' but to be seen.

You characterize my prose as 'barbaric energy.' Indeed, when those nine young Black men in the Scottsboro case were led to trial with nooses around their necks, swallowing an injustice so profound their throats could utter no sound; when the makeshift encampments of war veterans along the Anacostia River were crushed by tanks, that energy was indeed barbaric—it was the barbarism of reality itself.

You accuse my writing of exuding malice and hatred toward society and the country. Pray tell, when Mr. Upton Sinclair exposed the dark underbelly of the meatpacking industry in *The Jungle*, was he spreading 'hatred' or was he exposing truth?

For literature to maintain an air of polite gentility in the face of such a world is, in itself, the most profound hypocrisy.

Gentlemen, you yearn for a world composed of neat white picket fences and clear-cut answers. Yet in this era, we have already witnessed what happens when elite culture chooses to turn a blind eye to the fractures running beneath the ground.

If literature cannot confront this dust and acknowledge it as part of our shared history, then it becomes nothing more than a self-amusing pastime.

Yes, my fiction offers no comforting resolutions. It merely holds up a mirror, reflecting the nation's image from the depths of its alleyways, capturing the grittiest textures of this era.

If this reflection causes you discomfort, gentlemen, perhaps what needs to change is reality, not the mirror.

Ernie Riser
July 11, 1940, New York]

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