Release Date: April, 2008

 

To Enter Jerusalem comes at the end of a life which has included going to Nicaragua and staying in villages under contra attack, getting my Harvard Ph.D., founding an experimental college, heading the Pennsylvania Humanities Council, co-founding the National Constitution Center, being a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, and presently heading the Project for Nuclear Awareness.  Throughout this time, Hammarskjold has been my model and hero.

 

To Enter Jerusalem merges my own life, including a number of times staying in villages in Nicaragua under contra attack, with Hammarskold, my hero.

 

Review by David Pitt, BOOKLIST  –  February 15, 2008:

 

"This novel is deeper and far more substantial than it first appears—an epic story of personal growth told in under 200 pages. Dwight Lockwood’s father, Bradford, is the U.S. Secretary of Defense. He’s also a brutal, abusive man who rules his home and his son with an iron fist. Desperate to carve out his own life, Dwight hooks up in college with a Nicaraguan girl whom he soon follows home to her country (during the time of Ronald Reagan, Oliver North, and the Contra war). The novel follows Dwight as he falls in love, forges a career in politics, and takes his place on the world stage. It seems a simple story, but Eisendrath, a former foreign service officer (and a current consultant on U.S. diplomatic policy), layers on the subtext until the book becomes both a character study and a snapshot of a contentious period in American political history. With rich characters, sharp dialogue, and a multifaceted story, it’s a novel that works on a handful of levels." 

 

 

"[Eisendrath's] main character is Dwight Lockwood, son of a Secretary of Defense, whose perversions---evident starting with the first paragraph of this story---not only  victimize Dwight but propel his determination to make his life more meaningful and less destructive than his parents.  Eisendrath's grasp of history, international economics and political machinations serves him well, making the alternative political world Dwight hopes to achieve utterly believable, starting with his work in the Foreign Service through his eventual election as Secretary General of the United Nations.

 

To Enter Jerusalem is filled with ironies:  Dwight's use of his father's contacts to gain greater power and influence so that he could act in the sensitive political manner that his parents disdained; his chaste relationship with the beautiful, sensual Sabrina Montenegro, a young leftist he meets at Harvard and falls in love with; his push-pull suppression of deep-seated sexual feeling brought about by his father's exploitation; his ability to improve life for whole nations while being unable to help his own damaged soul.

 

When Sabrina "disappears" while serving in a rural Guatemalan hospital she becomes an ethereal presence in Dwight's inner reality and his vivid imaginings signal his growing seduction into a world other than the concrete one.  His dogged efforts to stay sane, alive and true to a mission he believes in is touching, scary, and poignant."