Ghosted: An American Story by Nancy French - Begins With Spotlight on the Cesar Sayoc case (Mail Bomber of Democrats) More Than A Memoir! "Ghosted" Because of Donald Trump!

 

Introduction...When I arrived home, I noticed a business card taped to my mailbox fluttering in the wind like a butterfly’s wing. I took it off, annoyed at whatever roofing company was trying to drum up business, and thumbed through my mail. But the card had a raised golden seal with five words printed beneath it: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Contact me at your earliest convenience.” The note on the back was written in slanted printed letters. “Urgent.” My chest tightened as I dialed my husband. “The FBI?” 

David was on a business trip, and his voice sounded distant now. “What did the agent say when you called him?” “You think I called him back?” I’d never been contacted by the FBI, but it seemed like an opening to a movie, the kind in which the unsuspecting woman ends up in a gas station bathroom cutting her hair with a knife and dyeing it with shoe polish hoping for a clean slate in Topeka. “Did you rob a bank?” His voice was teasing, laced with impatient incredulity. “If not, call them.” “Does the FBI typically come to a person’s house?” I asked. “I don’t know. Call him back, before it gets too late.” It was already dark. “Whatever this is, it’s not good.” I dialed the number. 

“Thank you for calling, Mrs. French.” The agent’s formality caused my throat to thicken. “Are you familiar with the Cesar Sayoc case?” Of course. Every news channel had been covering it around the clock for the past few weeks. In the days leading up to 2018’s midterm elections, Sayoc sent prominent Democrats pipe bombs in a wave of attacks. Fear of political violence spread across the nation. When the news first broke, I’d been on a job. I’m a ghost, but not the scary kind. The writer kind. Almost all celebrity books are written by ghostwriters like me, unknown writers who learn the minutiae of their celebrity clients’ lives and toil in obscurity to meet tight deadlines. But it’s true. Most famous people don’t have the time, skill, or inclination to write a book while starring in a television show, running for office, or training for the Olympics. That’s where I come in. I sit down, hear their stories, and go to their homes, studios, movie sets, weddings, or Olympic training centers and create books that will be in stores in twelve to eighteen months. 

When Sayoc mailed his first pipe bombs, I was with a client in a hotel lobby. The television news anchor on a nearby TV described how the bomber had targeted Bill and Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, several members of Congress, Barack Obama, George Soros, and Robert De Niro. The other hotel guests and I got closer to the screen, which showed images of a cylindrical object wrapped in electrical tape, wires emerging from both ends. Black ISIS-like flags were taped to them, as well as photos of the recipients with a red X marked across their faces. Someone was terrifying the nation right before the midterms. Bad news for democracy. 

My client shrugged and continued the interview. “Anyway, so let me tell you about why I support the president, even if people say he’s divisive. He’s a unifier, if anything.” Days after the first attack, the FBI identified this domestic terrorist as a stockily built Florida man who lived in a van covered with pro-Trump posters. The feds found binders full of media clippings, photo collages of people’s faces, and writings that said, in a 180-degree twist on the words of Christ, “Kill your enemy.” He’d taken his cues from every serial-killer documentary ever made. “I saw it on the news,” I said to the FBI agent. 

“But what does any of this have to do with me?” “We found your address on Sayoc’s computer.” He paused. “Your husband was on his list.” I sat down at the kitchen table. I’d never thought David, a conservative Iraq-war veteran, would ever be listed with Bill Clinton, Joe Biden, and Robert De Niro. We’d been Republicans our whole lives, and I’d helped many conservative leaders on book projects. “He targets prominent critics of the president,” he said. “Would that include your husband?” It would. David, who wrote for the conservative magazine National Review, had been one of the only Republican thought leaders to oppose Trump. His name had even been briefly floated for a quixotic, third-party run for president of the United States. He declined, but not before his reputation among Republicans was sealed: traitor. “What do we do?” “He may have sent you a package we haven’t intercepted yet,” he explained. “We’re working with the US Postal Service, but one could slip through.” I put my forehead in my hand, and my teenage son—who’d been hovering nearby—walked over, eyes wide with concern. “Look out for nondescript manila envelopes you aren’t expecting,” the agent said. “And alert your neighbors. None of the packages have detonated, but they could.” I couldn’t breathe. I’ve always prided myself on having a certain amount of emotional awareness and flexibility. Being a ghostwriter requires it. I’d worked with celebrities like Kim Kardashian, The Bachelor’s Sean Lowe, a Chinese political dissident, and prominent Republicans who had inhabited the nation’s top political positions. As a ghost, I don’t write “he hit Clara’s daughter” but “he hit my daughter.” I don’t write “the car crash killed the passengers” but “the car crash killed my friends.” I describe scenes in such detail that I sometimes experience secondary trauma vicariously living through the moment to capture it in the first-person written word. 

But in 2016, I felt a different, more personal type of trauma. That’s when things started to change in the GOP. Within a party proclaiming faith and freedom, an unsavory element bubbled to the surface. David and I were doing what we’d always done: speaking out about our values, values which had not changed. But as the political climate shifted, we suddenly were at odds with our own community. Either you were with the GOP, or you weren’t. We’d been ostracized because we refused to support a president who made a cameo in the Playboy film Playmate 2000 Bernaola Twins. We’d been confronted at church because we didn’t support a man who’d admitted to groping women. And now we’d been targeted by a domestic terrorist. I sat at my kitchen table, my hands shaking. Someone had to point out that the emperor—not just the Bernaola Twins—had no clothes. But at what cost? Not only was I forced out of my tribe, I’d lost my main source of income. My political clients wanted a ghostwriter to write what they told them to write. That’s the job. I was supposed to reflect their views for their books, not write my own. Not only did I write their books, I traveled with them, wrote speeches, and even sat at Fox News headquarters to sharpen their talking points. I specialized in witty insults, clever turns of phrase, and political statements aimed to provoke liberals. Combativeness was part of the fun, delivered with a wink. People would argue during the day and have a drink together in the evening. But the wink was gone, replaced by mean tweets. Acrimony had settled into our brows, and people from different political parties actually loathed each other. I tried to continue my political work but vowed not to twist the truth or bear false witness against my liberal neighbors. Because I lived in Franklin, Tennessee, I didn’t have many actual liberal neighbors, but you get the idea. I wouldn’t mischaracterize liberal positions, I wouldn’t make generalizations about an entire group based on the craziest outliers, and I wouldn’t assume the worst of every Democrat. Hadn’t my own approach to politics contributed to the problem? Couldn’t we all agree things had gone too far? Though my political clients had previously respected my opinion and enjoyed our back-and-forth dialogue, they now resented my questioning their talking points and softening their forceful rhetoric. 

I soon quit, or was fired by, all of them. That put me in a financially precarious situation. Now I was in a physically precarious one. I clutched the FBI agent’s business card. Since my multiracial family had taken a stance against Trump, we’d been mocked by Republicans, targeted by White nationalists, threatened with death, and alienated from our church community. But the American story is one of defiance, especially of the political kind. My unwillingness to bow the knee to an unsuitable president was the most American thing I’d ever done. And the ensuing rupture allowed me to see my nation and fellow Americans in new, more accurate, and ultimately more meaningful ways. I quit the GOP, which means I am no longer bound to toe the party line. Now I’m liberated from all expectations and can reveal what really happened. That’s what I’m doing now. Instead of writing for others, I’m telling my own story. As a ghost, invisible to the people around me, I’m coming out and making myself known. After floating along the outskirts of the powerful while our nation has digressed into unbelievable hatred, I’ve got a story to tell. It’s not tidy, nor is it easy, and it’s more than a little frightening. All good ghost stories are.

~~~

After an Introduction like no other, it was strange, then, to turn to the beginning of a woman's memoir, that was very much like any other personal memoir... So I wanted to share a little so you can get the flavor of French's background...

We tried to stuff that shadow in a mothball-filled closet back in Kentucky in a box labeled “Grandfather’s KKK Robe.” I’d heard stories about the “old” Ku Klux Klan, which—I’d always been told—kept law and order after the Civil War.

“What do you see?” she asked. Soft, prisms bounced around as I moved my head. Magical and mesmerizing. “Rainbows.” I twirled a tress of my dark hair. “What do you see?” 

My aunt took a drag from her cigarette and peered into the ball with me. “I’m a seer, so I see a lot,” she said. “But mostly, I see . . .” I straightened and prepared to discover the secrets of the universe. “Dollar signs.” 

I breathed out my disappointment but continued to look into the ball as the clock ticked. While we waited, my aunt told me about belonging to an Indian tribe and invited me and Grandmother to their next meeting. “We wear Indian headdresses, do dances, and even have our own Indian names,” she said, but Grandmother waved her off. She was the daughter of a Cherokee princess—one of our ancestors had been named Shield Eater—but her generation didn’t broadcast their identity on the mountain. When my dad left the mountain, we left behind all the Cherokee lore, the black magic, and the astrology. 

Still, I leaned in closer. “You need an Indian name to go with your blood,” Aunt Zinnia said. “Momma’s one half, and you’re one eighth, but I see it in you. Clear as day.” I shook my head. My dad would never let me attend any sort of Cherokee dancing rituals. We weren’t allowed to do any kind of dancing, but I felt the pull. My aunt packed up her crystal ball. “Guess he stood me up.” “Didn’t we know he wouldn’t come?” I asked, hesitantly. Because of Grandmother’s rag? Because my aunt was a seer? She tossed back her head and laughed. “I like you.” She flicked her ashes into a tray without looking. “Momma, she looks and talks like us, don’t she?” I shared their coloring, facial construction, and conversation style. I loved watching these women, whom I so resembled, move and talk. Fierce and beautiful. “Your eyes will melt many a man’s heart.” Aunt Zinnia pulled out a cigarette from her case. “The color of those old blue bottles your daddy finds in the woods. Cobalt.” Their own eyes were dark like coal, but my heart swelled at their sugarcoated insistence that I belonged in this stone house with magical apple peels and dishrags. I was one of them. My aunt blew the smoke from her cigarette away from my face and leaned in closer. “And you have the gift, don’t you?” “What gift?” “You can see.” I thought about it. My eyes worked. I clearly saw that the small home had provided shelter to two parents and seven tightly packed children. I saw the middle room, which had two beds—one for my grandparents and one for the two girls. I saw the room with dueling pianos where all five of the brothers had slept on one feather bed in a room with ice on the inside of the window in the morning. I saw what they still called the “new addition,” a closet-sized space with a toilet which replaced the outhouse my dad dug. When they got electricity and plumbing—reluctantly—they built a tiny addition with a single commode. My cousins stood over the toilet and watched the water flush away to parts unknown. Still, my grandfather didn’t trust it and never used an indoor toilet even once in his life. “It’s not my way,” he said. Aunt Zinnia always breezed in and out of our lives, and I felt honored to be in her presence, and I hung on her every word. “You have the gift. To see things that are far off, have passed, or will come.” As she took a drag from her cigarette, her eyes never left mine. “Reckon?” I hesitated. At church we were warned against soothsayers and psychics, but deep down I wanted to be like these women, to be special. She put her hand on my knee. “You have it. Don’t fight it.” For the second time in an hour, my destiny shifted. I had some sort of mystical power, and I only hoped my future husband—apparently a Mr. Quinn? Mr. Copeland? Mr. Shelby?—would appreciate that part of me. 

Grandmother put the chicken into the oven to stay warm, and the gravy needed to cook a bit longer. We walked through the middle room, which had a two-handed saw painted with vibrant deer-filled vistas hanging on the wall, into the far room. It had a couch, two upright pianos, and a chair in the corner. Grandfather had black lung disease from the deep-hole coal mines, but he smoked a pipe. The aroma—a blend of woods, vanilla, and tobacco—mixed with the smell of the stove. Slumped in his chair in his worn-out overalls, he bore an eerie resemblance to my father and uncles. While we waited on dinner, I tried to make conversation. 

“I’m reading a good book.” I held out my novel to my grandfather, who took in the pink cover without saying a word. Outside, the snow pelted in a horizontal pattern. Ice tapped the windows. He beheld the book for a long time, and no one moved. I didn’t know he couldn’t read and could write only his first and last names, a skill Grandmother had taught him so he could sign his Tennessee Coal Company checks. Not for a second did I consider anything to be beyond their capabilities. They had that lived-through-the-Depression resourcefulness, which meant they never threw anything away and stared problems in the face until the sun came up the next morning. Their spines were as strong as steel, their hair as black as coal, and their bodies as unshakable as the mountain. 

My dad broke the silence and addressed his mother. “Why don’t ya play us a tune?” My grandmother shook her head. Before she’d gotten married, she played piano on gambling boats, but marriage and seven kids put a damper on all that. Uncle Jasper stood up. “Come on now,” he said, patting the bench beside him indicating a seat for me. Jasper wore a red and black flannel shirt under his overalls; his glasses were tinted so he looked like a hillbilly celebrity. “Let’s play some music for these nice folks. They drove all this way.” They drove all this way. My sisters and I were on the mountain, but not of the mountain. He sat at one of the pianos and played the opening chords to “Your Cheatin’ Heart.” My grandmother, unable to resist the pull of the notes, sat at the

adjacent “dueling piano.” Uncle Jasper could play the banjo, guitar, and piano. But Grandmother was a savant. Her hands pounded the keys, yellowed and some worn all the way to the wood. She played all eighty-eight keys, no matter the song. “Your cheatin’ heart,” Uncle Jasper bellowed. I took lessons from a Baptist lady. One finger played one note. A mistake would stand out during recitals. But there was no such thing as a wrong note here. Grandmother played from the heart, several keys at once, sweeping her hand over the piano with confidence and ease. The music was syncopated, the beat was loose. I never knew where the notes would take me.

~~~

If you've read any books by Dolly Parton or other southern writers and enjoyed them, I think you'll enjoy the early part of this book, especially. I did! School, church, and playing music took place in my early home life, so if it sounds like yours, you'll be right at home in Nancy's early life... maybe not all of it though...

She was an early reader as well, so I can see where she would look toward writing as a career. But being able to listen to somebody else's story and make it sound like their own? I'd think that takes a special kind of person and skill. And French was doing well as a ghostwriter for many celebrities and other personalities...

Until they turned on her...

Even as I read her story and so many other book, I still can't quite figure out where all the hate came from that arose in America... Nancy and her husband, David, had been conservatives for most of their lives. David wrote for the conservative magazine, National Review. And was known as one of the "Republican thought leaders." But both David and Nancy had been one of the very few who refused to support DJ Trump. While I don't consider myself a conservative, I, too, had been questioned about my choice to not support a republican candidate (as a Christian)... The French family was greatly affected financially as they made the choice to not support a candidate who admitted to "groping women..." And, then, being targeted by one of those followers that listened to Trump and acted as they were incited to do...

Nancy also shared an early sexual assault within the church. Her story was included in a Discussion of Sexual Abuse earlier (see right column for info). When I think of her extended title for this book, I can't help but wonder whether this, then, is a major part of our American Story... Sadly, that is very possible... On the other hand, there are uplifting and heartwarming stories which have been shared... which, for me, supported my belief that God is touching people who are speaking Truth at this critical time in America...

Nancy began to seek out other jobs and soon was offered a column in "The Liberty Bell." It was the first time she'd ever had an ongoing job. While along the way David wanted to, and joined, the military services. And adoption was one of the callings for them...

Discussions were constant as things were happening, such as when Steve Bannon had joined the alt-right and was now supporting white nationalists... Yeah, those who were previously in their lives in some way were now part of what I call the cult... Then, Nancy was in somewhat of a panic about her "sin" being discovered--which really had been an assault--as David had been contacted to possibly run for president as well... Seriously, folks, you just can't make up this book!

This is a personal favorite for me, for many reasons... but mostly because Nancy French, and her family, Placed God as their highest priority! I call this a Must Read, especially before November!

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