By Jane Rosenthal
What will we do? Where will we go? If your group of friends is like mine, devastated by the election of a convicted fraud, a seditionist, an adjudicated rapist, and, yes, a fascist, according to Robert O. Paxton, the world’s expert on the subject, to the highest office in the land, you’ve been getting the same panicked phone calls, hearing the same questions. Do you have an answer?
My friends and I all talked tough before the election. If that monster wins, I’m out of here. Portugal was one top choice, Canada is always good, we told ourselves. Spain is fun. Italy has its own fascist leader, but, at least the Italians aren’t armed to the teeth, ready to shoot people in schools and supermarkets. Besides, there’s the food, the art, the opera. Before the election, there seemed to be options. We could just walk away.
And then we woke up on November 6 with the stark recognition that there was going to be no getting away from Der Furher Amerikanisch, Il Duce Trumpolini, no getting away from his reptilian, deviant cabinet picks, from his terrifying Project 2025, his plans to de-stabilize the post WW2 European order, destroy the environment, let climate change make a bonfire of the planet. His hideous grasp was going to reach around the world. Pasta, and da Vinci and Bel Canto, while lovely, would not protect us.
We would still have to open our eyes, look around and think. Think about other people who were being rounded up and forced into detention camps. Think about women dying from lack of basic reproductive care. Think about teenage boys shouting with impunity your body, my choice to middle and high school girls. Think about white men (and they will be the ones to get away with it, obviously), Christian Nationalists, believing that domination of others is their due.
No. Whether we are in Lisbon, or Rome or even Cleveland, at some point, we are going to probably be called on to resist or defy the monster’s or his minions’ orders. And how do we do that, exactly? We who have been dutifully following the law, adhering to the norms of free and fair elections, getting out the vote, sending postcards, working as precinct captains, not a felon, a fraudster, a rapist among us, what do we know? I don’t have a clue. I mean, I haven’t even gotten a parking ticket since 1986!
For me one solution to problems has always been to read fiction. While the questions Where do we go? What do we do? keep resonating in my head, I will turn to books for answers, to historical fiction, not as an escape, though we will need that, but as a road map for how to navigate the difficult journey we are going to be on for the next four years.
A fascist or an authoritarian regime —and I will leave it to historians like Timothy Snyder or Robert Paxton to argue which regime we will be living under— will demand that the citizens of those regimes acquiesce to the following: white, male supremacy and that group’s right to domination over those deemed inferior; an acceptance and, actually, a reverence of violence and warfare; a disdain for the arts and for intellectuals; purification of the community of those deemed inferior; absolute conformity to the regimes’ ideology and methods.
To combat the fascists’ requirements, I’m going to take my own advice and (re) read historical fiction to remind myself of what I need to do to keep from sinking into despair or unwittingly going along.
Here is my list of books that I know that contain gems of knowledge; here are a few of the lessons they can teach.
We Must Not Think of Ourselves by Lauren Grodstein
Based on a true story, this is a heartbreaking tale of Warsaw Jews’ lives as the Nazi grip of terror strangles all their rights. When they are finally shoved into the filthy, cramped Warsaw ghetto, the protagonist agrees to be part of a project that documents their suffering and for which he could be killed if his participation was discovered.
Lesson: Keep an archive of your life, a journal of the changes you experience in your day to day existence. Find love where you can and cling to it. Moral choices, right and wrong, will not be crystal clear. Understand why you made the choices you did. Write them down.
The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
This novel has sold more than four million copies. It tells the story of two French sisters and the actions they choose to take or are forced to take during the German occupation of France.
Lesson: Do not think you will escape. At some point, you will be forced to make a choice. What will you do? How will you feel? Think about how you might be changed by those actions. Write them down.
All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
This brilliant novel tells the story of two young people, one blind French girl, one Germanorphan, caught up in the horrors of war, and how they discover inner strengths and gifts.
Lesson: Resist the feeling that you have no power. Do not succumb to bullies. You have more abilities than you think. You may have to act without seeing the outcome clearly. Write what you do down.
The Last Rose of Shanghai by Weina Dei Randle
A story of a forbidden relationship between a Chinese nightclub owner and a penniless Jewish refugee.
Lesson: Defy what a Trump-controlled culture will expect of you. Do not submit. Form bonds with those who are demonized—immigrants, trans folk, women who need reproductive care. Do not conform. Document the times you defy the new, horrible normal.
The Goddess of Warsaw by Lisa Barr
When the young starlet Sienna Hayes approaches “living legend” Lena Brown in the year 2005 to ask permission to direct and act in a biopic of the famous star’s life, she has no idea the story she will discover under Browning’s glamorous façade. Neither does the reader. From one of the most famous uprisings in history in the Warsaw ghetto to current treachery, we will learn what grit and love combined can do.
Lesson: The Torah instructs us to “do justice, love mercy”, as do many other religious teachings. Try to live by that as much as you can. You will owe that to the people who will feel the brunt of Trump’s regime. Fight for them. Write what you witness down.
Just imagine the document you will have if you keep this journal. Share it with others. We cannot let ourselves feel alone. We are NOT alone, and we will prevail. These novels show us how others have done it before us.
Jane Rosenthal studied creative writing at San Francisco State University. She worked for NPR and California Public Radio before teaching radio production and English in public high schools in Oakland, California. For fifteen years, before relocating to Santa Fe, New Mexico, Jane lived on a ranch in the Sierra mountains complete with horses and cattle, fulfilling her dream of being a western cowgirl. Now, she can be found exploring the many cultural offerings of her new home in New Mexico or traveling to her favorite pueblos mágicos in old Mexico when she’s not in her office with a window overlooking the Georgia O’Keeffe landscape around her and writing those novels that have been kicking around in her head all these many years. Jane’s new novel, The Serpent Bearer, comes out March 2025. You can see more of Jane’s work on her website, and follow her on Facebook and Instagram.
