Introduction
Traditional morality, both sexual and political, is in the process of undergoing some rather radical change. For many people, these changes are shocking. But, as Alvin Toffler suggested in Future Shock, it isn't the nature of the changes but the rapidity with which they are taking place that shocks us. Watergate, for example, shocked people around the world not because it represented a new type of political immorality but because it was placed in the spotlight and criticized. What took place at Watergate, after all, has taken place in American politics in one form or another for over one hundred years. But by placing it in the spotlight and subjecting it to open criticism, Americans were in effect saying that they were adopting a new code of political ethics.
The very same process has taken place with sexual behavior in the United States, and immorality now seems to deal with ethics rather than erotic behavior. This syndrome is by no means limited to the United States. Upheaval, in many instances, is far more prevalent in other countries, particularly among the emerging nations in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
The Abducted Honeymooner is a fictional story that deals head-on with some of these changing values and standards. The setting is Argentina, a country that is today in an emergency condition of political and economic crisis. The principal characters, Peter and Jenifer Martin, Ignacio Sandoval, David Foster, and Sergio Mora, are studies of modern people caught in the swirling vortex of change. Each represents a traditional view, an established role, and not one of these major characters ends the novel without a dramatic change in character.
Sergio Mora loses his struggle for power in an emerging nation of the "Third World." Jenifer discards her traditional morality and becomes a realistic hedonist. And David Foster gives up his established role of a loner to accept a basic human emotion he had denied himself. All of this takes place in five days, which in itself represents the accelerated thrust of our society.
The author points to an interesting contract between two characters in The Abducted Honeymooner: Ignacio Sandoval, the "Hawk"; and David Foster, the "Wolf". Both are "hired guns," but there the similarity ends. The "Hawk" is a professional terrorist and assassin. He was trained in Cuba and is available for hire to any group seeking to disrupt established order. Not too many years ago characters like the "Hawk" were thought to be strictly fictional. But arrests throughout Latin America in the last five years have proved, beyond any doubt, that these men exist, that they are not politically motivated by any particular cause, and that they are highly trained technicians who do what they do for money. For while they are trained by the communists, they aren't necessarily communists themselves. They are, as the author points out here, opportunists who follow the political climate for their own ends.
The "Wolf", on the other hand, represents a new breed of idealists that is growing in various nations of the world. Men like David Foster are also opportunists, but opportunists with a cause. They are men like Daniel Ellsberg who put their personal beliefs above the rules of their society. The Ralph Nader investigations, the Pentagon Papers, and the Watergate hearings indicate that America will be seeing a good deal more of these idealists in the immediate future.
In The Abducted Honeymooner we see the author challenging a number of society's hallowed traditions, particularly in the equation of morality and sex. It is a moral story told in part, in erotic terms. It questions traditional standards and values. "We're both inhabitants of the fringe of society," David Foster says. "While the rest of the world is trying to put things together, we're busy trying to tear them apart." The author suggests that these battles aren't won by miles but by inches, very much as man battles the erosion of the sea on the sands of shore.
The Abducted Honeymooner is a story of political upheaval and social change. It is the story of a girl. And of a man. And about what's happening today.
-The Publisher