Melissa Ross
There’s been a string of Democratic victories, keeping the White House firmly out of GOP hands. Much of the country feels disenfranchised.
Then, a federal ban on handguns is approved. It’s the final straw. Discontent swells into armed rebellion.
Texas secedes from the Union, followed by most other Southern states, and a bloody civil war breaks out.
That’s the premise behind North Florida novelist Sean Smith‘s new book “Tears of Abraham,” published this week.
“Lincoln is my favorite president,” said Smith. “He was willing to shed blood to keep this country together. But the ‘party of Lincoln’ is no longer that, and when we look at the polarization in America now, I think it would make Lincoln cry.”
Referencing everything from violence at Donald Trump rallies to the division between the country’s two major parties, and the “haves and have-nots,” Smith, in a wide-ranging interview with WJCT, admits that while his book is fiction, it’s not unthinkable.
“I started the book two years ago. Things were already bad then. Now, we’re seeing the seething rage across the country, to where it’s just bursting into the streets. You see folks on social media howling for secession, very anti-government, and I don’t think they realize what a civil war would actually mean. So I wrote this book as a cautionary tale.”
Smith will talk about “Tears of Abraham” and sign copies of the book at an April 2nd appearance at the St. Johns Town Center Barnes and Noble.
