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About
Biko Lives is a timely epistolary novel, combining first person narration of the protagonist trying to explain what has befallen him and family member's responses to chapters of the narrative. It opens in 2006, in Charles De Gaulle Airport, Roissy, France. MADISON WHITEHOUSE is in a designated "safe" area for political refugees. His name, now synonymous with betrayal of the U.S., has been destroyed. So, he's writing his version of what happened to set the record straight.
His troubles begin in 2004, then a famous black conservative, a provocateur of hot button issues: racism ended in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act, taking swipes at feminism, multi-culturalism, affirmative-action, illegal immigrants, punching holes in the NAACP and the Left. He is also a food critic for the Orange County Register and bestselling author of travel books that have gotten him banned in countless third world countries. He is in the middle of a California divorce where all assets must be split. Low on money, his agent proposes doing a travel book about Central Africa, He agrees, sure he will only be gone for a few weeks.
While in Africa he gets caught in a coup d'etat, is a accused of the death of American soldiers, tortured while in prison, but when Left militants attack the prison, releasing all the prisoners, he is swept up. He immediately wants to get away from the Leftist until he learns the American government has a price on his head. He stays with the Leftist and becomes a cook for them. Meanwhile the American government and the press are now calling him a turncoat and putting him in a special category with traitors. The CIA has a team of trackers led by BREWSTER, a man who lives in Africa, but should he catch Madison, he can come home.
When Madison and the Leftist group goes on the run across Africa they are hunted down by Brewster and Company, However, Madison escapes and makes a trek across the African continent: hitch hiking, joining a neo-safari as a cook and waiter, then on to the East African coast where he bribes a ship member and becomes an illegal immigrant in a shipping container filled with illegal immigrants headed for France. He arrives in Marseille with Brewster right on his heels. He makes his way to Charles De Gaulle airport, where Brewster is within inches of catching Madison, but Madison uses Brewster being in France illegally against him. Madison then makes it to a "Designated Safe Area" in the airport for political refugees. Here he can see newspapers that show his impact as a man on the run, when people learn he used to be on the left and wrote under the name "Biko," who was a South African Liberationist during apartheid who was killed by the South African police. Madison sees signs have popped up around the world: BIKO LIVES. This causes him to confront his past and what he believes. He will never be the same and the secret has been forced into the open: that he does not believe anything he has written for the conservatives in America. He simply wanted to live a good life and he chose that side for that cynical reason.
Now safe. he takes two years to write what happened to him. He gives the manuscript to a traveler headed to the states, who mails it to his cousin, JANICE. They have not spoken in years, but she is the only person the FBI would have no knowledge of. She is contemptuous of Madison, he wrote a book about her: MY COUSIN JANICE'S ADVENTURES IN THE WELFARE SYSTEM. Despite her anger, Janice goes to his LITERARY AGENT, but unknown to them the FBI has his office tapped. The FBI comes after Janice. At first she resist, but the FBI places her in jail and her children in foster care. She turns the manuscript over to them. But, unknown to the FBI, she had a copy of the manuscript made. Outraged at her treatment by the FBI, she uses the library to scan it and then she drops it on the internet.
Madison is cleared. They reunite on the Larry King show…
His troubles begin in 2004, then a famous black conservative, a provocateur of hot button issues: racism ended in 1965 with the Voting Rights Act, taking swipes at feminism, multi-culturalism, affirmative-action, illegal immigrants, punching holes in the NAACP and the Left. He is also a food critic for the Orange County Register and bestselling author of travel books that have gotten him banned in countless third world countries. He is in the middle of a California divorce where all assets must be split. Low on money, his agent proposes doing a travel book about Central Africa, He agrees, sure he will only be gone for a few weeks.
While in Africa he gets caught in a coup d'etat, is a accused of the death of American soldiers, tortured while in prison, but when Left militants attack the prison, releasing all the prisoners, he is swept up. He immediately wants to get away from the Leftist until he learns the American government has a price on his head. He stays with the Leftist and becomes a cook for them. Meanwhile the American government and the press are now calling him a turncoat and putting him in a special category with traitors. The CIA has a team of trackers led by BREWSTER, a man who lives in Africa, but should he catch Madison, he can come home.
When Madison and the Leftist group goes on the run across Africa they are hunted down by Brewster and Company, However, Madison escapes and makes a trek across the African continent: hitch hiking, joining a neo-safari as a cook and waiter, then on to the East African coast where he bribes a ship member and becomes an illegal immigrant in a shipping container filled with illegal immigrants headed for France. He arrives in Marseille with Brewster right on his heels. He makes his way to Charles De Gaulle airport, where Brewster is within inches of catching Madison, but Madison uses Brewster being in France illegally against him. Madison then makes it to a "Designated Safe Area" in the airport for political refugees. Here he can see newspapers that show his impact as a man on the run, when people learn he used to be on the left and wrote under the name "Biko," who was a South African Liberationist during apartheid who was killed by the South African police. Madison sees signs have popped up around the world: BIKO LIVES. This causes him to confront his past and what he believes. He will never be the same and the secret has been forced into the open: that he does not believe anything he has written for the conservatives in America. He simply wanted to live a good life and he chose that side for that cynical reason.
Now safe. he takes two years to write what happened to him. He gives the manuscript to a traveler headed to the states, who mails it to his cousin, JANICE. They have not spoken in years, but she is the only person the FBI would have no knowledge of. She is contemptuous of Madison, he wrote a book about her: MY COUSIN JANICE'S ADVENTURES IN THE WELFARE SYSTEM. Despite her anger, Janice goes to his LITERARY AGENT, but unknown to them the FBI has his office tapped. The FBI comes after Janice. At first she resist, but the FBI places her in jail and her children in foster care. She turns the manuscript over to them. But, unknown to the FBI, she had a copy of the manuscript made. Outraged at her treatment by the FBI, she uses the library to scan it and then she drops it on the internet.
Madison is cleared. They reunite on the Larry King show…