Disaster is a commentary on disaster movies and a parody of novels and our culture.  It is fast paced action with twists at every turn. Satire, humor, wit, and a keen sense of history and culture are employed to create a myth that transforms senseless violence into the etiology of President Johnson’s Great Society Programs. When she was running for president, then Senator Hillary Clinton ignited a firestorm of protest and controversy when she said, “Dr King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done.” The comment reignited the debate which has raged for decades over the motivation for President Johnson's sudden shift to become a major catalyst of civil rights legislation, most prominently the “Great Society Programs.” If what Peavy discloses is true, then Presidential Candidate Clinton will be vindicated. However, for the moment, the controversy continues and that is why the novel is being published in the United Kingdom. Why did he do it? Why did President Lyndon Baines Johnson, a Son of the South, the epitome of the Southern Democrat, force the U.S. Congress to pass the Great Society programs? These questions have haunted historians and political pundits for decades. Now, in a moving, enlightening and revealing historical narrative, Don E. Peavy, Sr. reveals in Disaster Among the Heavens, a compelling reason for the unprecedented and bewildering actions of former President Johnson. Based on research of many governmental documents following the great declassification which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, Peavy pieces together a shocking tale of how close America came to disaster as the result of a group of black revolutionists from Chicago who were able to take over NORAD and hold America hostage until the Great Society programs were enacted. It seems ironic that another African American from Chicago has been elected president of the USA to lead a different kind of revolution.  Disaster is a commentary on disaster movies and a parody of novels and our culture.  It is fast paced action with twists at every turn. Satire, humor, wit, and a keen sense of history and culture are employed to create a myth that transforms senseless violence into the etiology of President Johnson’s Great Society Programs.  A disillusioned physician and a prostitute find themselves in a subterranean bunker at NORAD in Colorado with the dying leader of a failed Black revolution. They accept this twist of fate and draft a Black manifesto that is sent to President Johnson who is given 72 hours to adopt it or they will launch NORAD’s intergalactical missiles towards the moon which will result in the moon being pushed beyond its Roche limit and catastrophic storms and disturbances on earth. Tension builds as America’s military intelligence and might are activated to retake NORAD and avert war with the Soviet Union. The end result is the military fails, though war is averted, and President Johnson is forced to implement the Great Society Programs and announces that he will not seek re-election.               Excerpt After reading the contents of the box, I replaced the cover and suddenly I was engulfed in a blinding light which emanated from the ceiling as there were no windows in the room. I covered my eyes to protect them when I felt a gentle touch removing my hands from my eyes. It was the Prophet Joseph Smith and his Eight Witnesses who stood around the box. They glared at me approvingly and then the Prophet said, “This is true. Publish it that others may come into the light. Do not fear the critics. Remember, they persecuted me before you and if they persecuted one of their own, imagine what they will do to you!” The Witnesses gave out a deep, Gregorian chant of approval. Though gripped by fear, this chorus of apparitions gave me strength for the task ahead. Having concluded their testimony, they lifted up toward the ceiling as did the box which was in the midst of them though none of them touched it. Their ascent was slow, methodical, and without the noise, flames and movement that accompanied the Great Spirit as it escaped the doomed Temple and made its way to the distant mountain top. There were no trumpets flaring to herald their departure. No great light burst into the room to usher them to their celestial abode. I gazed toward them until they and the sarcophagus disappeared. “Young man, why stand you here gazing at the ceiling? Don’t you know that all things will come as they go and go as they come? You must get to the task at hand while it is at hand.” I turned to face an old man whom I recognized from my Sunday school class as Josephus, the great historian. He was thin, almost frail, for one who had been raised in the household of a Roman Emperor. He still sported his long beard which fell almost to his waist. He wore the garb of a high priest, having been elevated in the afterlife from the mere priestly status he shared during his period of rebellion. His eyes radiated the colour of onyx which contrasted the gold that surrounded the base of his mitre. When he spoke, his voice was like that of many waters. He moved with all the grace of Daniel Dunglas Home, who fascinated members of the aristocracy by levitating in broad daylight. These appearances and disappearances were playing havoc with my mind. All that I had undergone since my arrival in the Granite City had me confused and bewildered and was too incredible for me to accept calmly. I tried to speak but words failed me. Josephus handed me a golden pen with the words Testimonium Flavianum engraved upon it. As I took hold of the pen, he faded away whispering the word, “Write!” I was alone once again. I looked at the pen and at each of my hands. The pen vibrated and sent tremors of electricity through my hands. Then I found a stack of legal pads nearby and started to write down the things I had seen, heard, read, and felt; making copious notes while interviewing thousands of persons, both living and dead. Hear then this story of woe. Listen carefully. For those who hear these words and believe will be spared the horror of the eternal darkness. Those who don’t, well, even now the fingers of the abyss are creeping upon you. So listen, and in listening believe. For in believing you will be spared the disaster among the heavens. . . .

Professional Reviews
Disaster Among the Heavens: Can America’s Blessed People Survive?
Disaster Among the Heavens: Can America’s Blessed People Survive?

For the black author, the onus of writing a novel in the 21st century carries a portentous historic weight. The African American novelist cannot escape the legacy of writers like Wright, Ellison, and Baldwin, whose names have dominated our literary map since World War II. Today these literary giants continue to cast a daunting critical shadow over emerging black writers; we listen for a new voice that acknowledges the mantel of our troubled past, but also articulates the subtleties of our contemporary struggle for social and economic progress.
One writer who is particularly well versed in history but also cognizant of his responsibility to speak to today’s reader is Don Peavy. In his new book, Disaster Among the Heavens, Peavy simultaneously engages the ghosts of black history and also looks forward, suggesting an ethical manifesto meant to bridge conflicting American ideologies. Peavy is a historian, a cultural critic, a conspiracy theorist, and a philosopher all at once. His choice for the setting of his tale is the “ground zero” of modern black consciousness: the 60’s. With a deft eye and an attentive ear, Peavy recreates the sights and sounds of that tumultuous decade, when our nation appeared to spin out of control, but curiously looked for answers to its moral quandary from two Southerners – a black Baptist minister and a white Texas politician.
It is the latter figure that dominates the thread of Peavy’s tale. Lyndon Johnson finds himself hounded by all the threats we remember so well, including the ongoing conflict in Vietnam and the equally dark drama of the inner city. But added to what we know about the 60’s
(at least what we think we know, suggests Peavy) comes a perilous dramatic twist: while LBJ fights communist threats abroad and cultural disenfranchisement at home, he also must deal with an insurrection -- a ferociously dangerous black uprising, cynically labeled as “the revolution” by our government’s intelligence agencies.
Who is responsible for this “revolution”? Ironically, it turns out that America’s network of spy operatives, in particular one black agent identified only as “the Assistant” (a clever allusion to Ralph Ellison’s epic study of invisibility), fosters potential world chaos. Peavy’s story of violence and subterfuge condemns a contingent of players who subscribe to various creeds, but lack the courage or strength to act on those beliefs. The Assistant is the only character who acts and knows why he acts. Spiraling events and layer upon layer of deception take us from Washington to Nashville to Colorado, where the NORAD missile defense system becomes the battleground for an apocalyptic struggle between blacks and whites.
Peavy knows his cultural artifacts, and his satiric nod towards film masters like Stanley Kubrick is adept. Lyndon Johnson is the antithesis of the President we meet in Dr. Strangelove; Peavy’s leader is blustery, obscene, and ruthless, in direct contrast to Peter Seller’s memorable turn as the mild-mannered, ineffectual leader. But Peavy’s point about American presidents is the same as Kubrick’s: real or imagined, in their hour of desperation, our leaders are malleable and vacuous. Look inside the man who ostensibly conceived our “Great Society,” and you will find a leader forced to act humanely by adverse circumstances. Faced with a revolt from a band of black activists who threaten a nuclear holocaust, Johnson wilts under pressure and trumpets a newfound, empathic philosophy. American leaders may eventually act, says Peavy, but only because of dire necessity or coercion, never as the result of principle.
So a titanic struggle is waged between two less than heroic characters -- one a beleaguered white political opportunist, the other a self-serving, power-driven black. The winner (or at least the survivor) is no surprise, given the lessons of history these past five decades. But Don Peavy’s training as both lawyer and minister enables him to pass judgment on the American scene with scathing indictments. Peavy’s vibrant characters, including a disillusioned CIA agent, a loving (and willing) prostitute, and a Johnnie-come-lately revolutionary who doubles as a doctor, are all testaments to the pervasive American appetites for power and lust. Each is characterized by passions that know few limits; in the end, each is consumed by a personal creed that emphasizes self-aggrandizement far more than collective social need. From Peavy’s perspective, we Americans are a wholly intriguing and colorful lot, but our motivation is dubious, our direction unknown.
Disaster Among the Heavens intrigues the reader on several levels. Peavy’s contention that Americans may never know the truth of their political history appeals to any red-blooded lover of conspiracy theory. So, too, his illustrious troupe of musical, literary, and pop icons reminds us that too often we venerate figures, rather than deeds or ideas. And Peavy’s central dilemma is unmistakable: How will America, a country founded on and perpetuated by innumerable kinds of violence, ever escape a catastrophic and bloody end?
Peavy’s crowning irony is the absence of pacifist Martin Luther King, Jr. during the revolution. Co-opted to leave our shores for Africa on a humanitarian mission, King becomes another pawn in Johnson’s conspiratorial response to anarchy. Without our legendary activist to serve as moral compass, Peavy summons the guiding spirits of previous black luminaries, like W.E.B. Du Bois, whose prediction that the “color line” would be the central challenge of our era is only bolstered by cataclysmic events that portend an irreconcilable racial divide. Caught in a perpetual circle of violence and deception, with no moral touchstone at hand for deliverance, America quickly moves to the brink of extinction.
Peavy’s larger view of our homeland, like that of his central characters, is decidedly ambivalent. Despite its historic pattern of carnage and racism, Peavy acknowledges that America has managed to survive – even, on some levels, to thrive. It is not our cultural or economic capacities to endure that are in doubt, though. For Don Peavy, it is the sum of our ethical shortcomings these past fifty years that matters. As his narrative concludes, and it is clear that in spite of ourselves we do survive the ultimate apocalyptic threat, the writer looks at the promise of the 60’s, and bluntly wonders, “Have we become a Great Society?” Peavy’s morality tale suggests that our antagonistic belief systems, coupled with our materialistic, individualistic drives, cast a dark pall on our legacy to the world. For this African American author, who is steeped in the contradictory experiences of political oppression and redemptive spirituality, the potential of all Americans, no matter their color, hangs in the balance.

Bruce Gilman, PhD.
Professor of English
Saddleback College

Literary Review: Disaster Among the Heavens
Don E. Peavy, Sr. has taken multifarious areas of life-time training, experiences and marketing tools to write this compelling historical event that addresses the U.S. government’s methodology of dealing with terrorist events within its borders, spawned by a U.S. citizen because of America’s refusal to address racial issues. “…the Civil Rights Movement was encountering the brutality of a “peculiar institution” that refused to die and continued to reincarnate in ever more horrific forms of oppression. Page 32.”
In the process of historically chronicling world history events known to most people around the world, the author poses the question to the reader in the form of suspense: Is each character aware of the events to follow based upon their decisions and actions taken? As the author narrates the story, the human developmental angles are so eloquently laid out that they display the author’s brilliance in articulating descriptive narrative.
I love the way the author transitions smoothly from one character to the other while keeping the story line in its current mode. Graphic descriptions of the environments in which the actors moved were provided, and the author is able to paint the characters as having found romance within violence.
The main characters ultimately were the President, the Assistant, Fredda and Dr Diggs. The President, a deeply religious man, envisioned himself a knight defending his beloved country, but try as he might he kept failing until...The author was able to paint Fredda and Dr. Diggs’ passion within the scope of the violence they are encountering.
This couple of convenience lucks out when male ego intertwines and the Command Centre and their only real threat, Hammer Head, was destroyed...Dr Diggs reasoned that his involvement with the Assistant was based on his childhood experience when his beloved father who was denied treatment based upon the color of his skin.
Exciting mystery begins with the young photographer John and his friends as they dangerously pursue notoriety. John Theodore Baronford brings to mind the final days of John F. Kennedy, Jr. as he flew across the ocean waters and disappeared into thin air or the fatal crash of Mickey Leland in Ethiopia, dissimilar yet tragic. I perceived that Danger Among the Heavens is about doing things as a group and being allowed to “do it.”
God...Providence....Hope...laughter....disgust...heritage…raises social consciousness. The author played with my psyche when he relays the details about the murder of Baronford and his friends and the Baronford father being awarded a huge governmental contract, the devastation to the earth’s surroundings as a result of the explosion, man’s cognitive processing ability versus the beasts after the airplane crash, because it is something with my cynical mind I’d believe.
The analogy of the westward expansion using the story of Jack and the Beanstalk was pure genius and provides the readers a new theory on the formulation and history of America and its political, religious, the racial divide, industrialization, socioeconomic system, technological development and feminism issues.
There were an abundance of references to brand name products that provided clues to the eras and its similarities to the events transpiring in this historical chronology.
Disaster Among the Heavens and the end result of the Assistant’s efforts would be akin to the forecast events in the book of Revelations. Don E. Peavy, Sr. is either living the good life, remembers the good life, luxury or well read and able to recant his readings and professionally place his thoughts on paper. The book is excellent. The author appeals to our emotions, uses one-sided examples, rhetorically-charged language and tone.
8/4/2009 7:25 PM
Linda Abner Fitzpatrick, Dallas, Texas

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