Reviewed by Bill Hector Weye.
Jobs
in the United States can move around like marbles on a table top, and when the marbles
fall off the table it means the jobs have either moved to another country or have been
eliminated entirely. Global economic competition is causing much of this job insecurity in
the United States. Downsizing, which sounds like it may come from the lexicon of tailors,
instead is the lead ball being dropped by companies when jobs are eliminated, destroying
businesses and livelihoods upon impact. The ripple from downsizing is unmistakable:
declining real wages, less job security, and forced adaptation, many times when a person
is nearing retirement. Fortunately for his readers, novelist Donald E. Westlake
knows where to burrow into this pile to find dark humor, and he chronicles the absurdities
of downsizing in the United States in his novel The Ax. I recently read a column by the Boston Globe ombudsman about readers' complaints that reviewers were divulging surprise endings or too much plot of books, movies, and plays; so, I will avoid the reader's wrath and simply discuss the themes Westlake explores.
Desperation-when you have a family to support and all that pride is wrapped up in socially imposed obligations, there must be an enemy that inflicted this downsizing pain on you and yours. But it's difficult to find one palpable enemy. It's not as though there is a purse snatcher you can later pluck from a police line-up. Quite the opposite--someone stole your place (job) in the line-up. The protagonist of "The Ax", Burke Devor, has thought about this dilemma and he has a plan to solve it. It's not a perfect plan, because he can't touch the real enemy. In a democracy where votes are for sale, there's not much that ordinary people can do to control the actions of large corporations seeking the highest possible profits for their stockholders.
But all the economic theory in the world won't change one persons life. Burke Devor is only concerned with what is on his own plate: "What it comes down to is, the CEOs, and the stockholders who put them there, are the enemy, but they are not the problem. They are society's problem, but they are not my personal problem." Every slight in life can become personal when your whole identity is summarized with the label "bread winner", and that is Burke Devor's ultimate weakness (not downfall! he gets away with the evil deeds!). It's a failure to adapt to new circumstances in an economy quite different than which existed in the youth of a middle aged person. That may be a harsh judgment, but it is a reality unless people want to use being downsized as a justification for rolling over.
One of the most repugnant effects of downsizing is the way it can make good people act as if they are trying to crawl from a Darwinian primordial ooze. People's base instincts are stirred when their jobs are snatched and they will turn on once trusted colleagues in the workplace, people they felt a kinship with because they were in the work-a-day muck with them. When caught in any society's economic riptide, trying to prevent being dragged to poverty, it's difficult for some of the downsized bread winners to orient to new circumstances. As Burke Devor puts it, "We give up the highs, and in return we're supposed to be protected from the lows. We give our loyalty to a company, and in return they're supposed to give us a smooth ride through life. And now it isn't happening, and we feel betrayed."
When you have been downsized there isn't time to worry about anything other than hunting and gathering, namely earning a regular paycheck to support the family. The picture of Burke Devor's life is one of single minded determination to straighten the yaw that downsizing has caused in his family's life. When society has problems that affect your world there isn't much to be done other than bring your piece of the sphere under control. Burke Devor couldn't kill a group of executives or stockholders and expect to be hired into his predestined position, could he? That would not be reasonable nor logical, but I did say Westlake was using dark wit (I'm saying too much now). What Burke Devor is doing to secure employment is a result of what society has become, and he is conscious of this, so it is not he, the displaced worker, who is crazy. When a news report of an unemployed lunatic appears before your eyes on the eleven o'clock news, Burke Devor wants you to remember him and his desperation.,
"The end of what I'm doing, the purpose, the goal, is good, clearly good. I want to take care of my family; I want to be a productive part of society; I want to put my skills to use; I want to work and pay my own way and not be a burden to the taxpayers. The means to that end has been difficult, but I've kept my eye on the goal, the purpose. The end justifies the means. Like the CEOs, I have nothing to feel sorry for."
Burke Devor does what he believes he has to do to maintain a consistency with his former life. Let me say that Burke Devor is a troubled man, a rigid man who, in the end, fails to adapt to the circumstances of downsizing. In addition, he teaches his own son how to lie in order to avoid legal entanglement. Still, he is a sympathetic character. Some readers may not agree with me, and I can understand why; after all, Devor does commit...(oh, I almost gave up the jig!). Are his actions (I will not tell you what those are) anymore reprehensible than the CEOs he speaks of? If there is a metaphysical judge of such things, I believe Devor would argue, let It judge the validity and righteousness of his acts. He is trying to sustain his family, while the CEOs only want to bulge the coffers of an already prosperous company without any consideration for loyal employees. Isn't there a law that states a person can break a law if it prevents a greater harm?
Copyright 1998, Bill Hector Weye.