Why Now?
¿Por Qué Ahora?
Why Now? ¿Por Qué Ahora?
“A procrustean bed we had made ourselves.”
In the middle of her career — after she was an LA writer and before she became a memoirist of grief — Joan Didion discovered Latin America. And politics.
Joan Didion may not have predicted the current and ongoing humanitarian crisis at the Southern border of the United States, but she could not have been surprised by it. She spent the middle part of her career chronicling the fallout of foreign intervention in Latin America. In multiple essays, two non-fiction books and two novels — most notably, A Book of Common Prayer — Didion explored the often tragic outcomes precipitated by U.S. foreign policy in Central and South America. What she saw in El Salvador while reporting on the Civil War there — secret police, death squads, disappearances, evidence of the torture of men, women and children — was horrific. The perpetrators of these crimes against humanity were often trained, supported and financed either overtly or covertly by the U.S. government.
The trauma that Didion observed and wrote about in El Salvador was tragic and unspeakable. The fallout echoes through generations. When — as she wrote of El Salvador — “Terror is the given of the place,” what chance does a government have? What chance do families have? What chance do children have? There comes a point when to flee is the only way to survive. Arguably, a direct line can be drawn between the U.S. support of repressive right wing regimes in the last century, and the current humanitarian crisis at our Southern border.
“Terror is the given of the place.”
We believe that drama can be a great way to spark important conversations. Common Prayer is not polemical. It is a beautiful story about two women from the U.S. who meet and become friends in a tiny country that has been devastated and hollowed out by the U.S. government and its willing collaborators. Boca Grande is struggling to find its own identity, to create its own narrative, to define its own future, while being governed by small, corrupt men who are all too eager to embrace the intervention, adventurism and fuckery of U.S. foreign policy in order to line their pockets and wield their own power.
Boca Grande is virtually in ruins. Common Prayer is a tragic story of love and friendship among those ruins; ruins created by the U.S.; ruins created by us. As record numbers of refugees are now fleeing from countries where “terror is the given of the place,” and gathering in deplorable conditions on our Southern border, now is the perfect time for a Common Prayer.
A Statement From Our Producers
“For decades, Joan Didion reported on predatory involvement by the US government in the politics and economics of Central America. Tangled interventions were fueled by Cold War fears and corporate greed, justified by the stated policy that Latin Americans were incapable of governing themselves. A BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER was written in 1977. The seeds of a problem alluded to in the fictional Central American republic in Joan’s novel were treated as a revelation in recent years, as asylum seekers fled violence and poverty. As the tragedy at the border unfolded, the horror of family separations seemed like an unpredictable outcome; a familiar corrupt narrative echoes through it. While COMMON PRAYER is a beautiful character driven story set in a fictional place, in the real world we hope our limited series suggests accountability for how we got here.”
— Marcia Weiss & George Vanbuskirk