[Enigma 04] • The Woman in Green

The narrator of THE WOMAN IN GREEN repeatedly insults his readers of 2050 and wishes he were instead addressing readers of 2025, when somewhat fewer were boneheads. Born under a curse at the exact moment of the 9/11 attacks, he looks back on two remarkable utopian experiments--one religious, the other secular--in early 19th-century New Harmony, Indiana. He then looks ahead to his grandfather Sam Coverdale's visionary effort in the millennial year 2000 to create a new "Boatload of Knowledge" on the banks of the Wabash. His cast of characters bears an unsettling resemblance to Mary Shelley's circle of Frankenstein intimates.

What could go wrong? From a macabre scroll found under a labyrinth to a dramatic fiasco on the world stage to a heady balloon ride to freedom, these characters plus one prescient turtle hang on together as friends and lovers, narrowly averting suicide within the ranks. Along the way, a Byronic character cheerfully cites strong evidence, hitherto overlooked, that Shakespeare himself was a suicide. Against the adds, they emerge with lasting romantic bonds and vision that the enigmatic Woman in Green will someday prosper on Planet Earth.