The Terrible Fours

When Ishmael Reed wrote “The Terrible Twos” about the American infantile need for instant gratification, he could not have realized that in June 2020, journalist Nicole Wallace would be referring to a president as a "toddler." Reed had parodied other genres, the gothic novel, the detective novel, the western and the neo-slave narrative, a term that he coined in 1984, and which began a big academic payroll as it was included in syllabi nation-wide. From his first novel, “The Free-Lance Pallbearers, Afro-Futurist” before the critical term existed, Ishmael Reed has reshaped traditional forms and extended them. As a Jazz pianist, who has performed in clubs and even in a palace in Italy, he compares it to taking cliché chords and re-harmonizing them.

“The Terrible Fours” follows “The Terrible Twos” (1982) and “The Terrible Threes” (1989). It is part science fiction, part Washington Novel (Think Drew Pearson's novel, “The Senator”, films "Seven Days in May" and "The Manchurian Candidate") and part Christmas Novel. Some characters have been dropped and some of the principals are back. St. Nicholas is here, but his sidekick Black Peter is missing. Dean Clift, the president who was removed from office, still resides in a Maryland sanatorium. Televangelist Clement Jones still runs the White House. "The Rapture," that Jones and the figurehead president Jesse Hatch promised, hasn't arrived.