The Crimson Shame

In the year 2035 the USA has fallen into the iron grip of religious fascism….but one doctor is determined to bend the rules, and one dangerously corrupt president is out to stamp him and his kind out forever….

Dr. Jon Conneaut is a doctor, not your average “how’s your temp?” doctor, but a doctor that must hide in his patients’ closets when a police car cruises by his workplace. Jon is known unfortunately and not by desire as an Abortionist. Since the “holy” inauguration of Lisa Christian as President of the United States, Jesus has been everywhere. He even could be seen hanging from a cross in front of the Whitehouse and the sacred chambers and halls of Congress.

Lisa wants to be a queen, not a president, and she is making that quite clear throughout the country. Her first act as president was to replace the Supreme Court with white Jesus-loving women. Her second act was to abolish abortion. When that happened Jon immediately became a criminal and is now wanted by the FBI. Family doctors are now monitored by these very same FBI, we don’t want any of that tugging and pulling of the vagina now do we?

Jon is part of a medical group that hides wherever it can; garages, warehouse, and once or twice in someone’s basement. The group has lost a few of its members at the hands of Lisa Christian’s unsavory henchmen or women, whichever the case. Jon keeps his business secretive often traveling to the homes of patients, but only through the contact of a cohort or an encrypted cellphone. Those precautions soon fall to the wayside and the doctor’s whereabouts becomes common knowledge to President Christian.

Doctor Conneaut soon is on the run and with the help of his lover Julia he manages to escape his homeland. He makes it to Bermuda and suddenly life becomes filled with livable moments, sparse good times. Julia made it possible. The tentacles of Jesus and Lisa Christian, however, are long and unrelenting. The doctor is once again on the move. With a ten million price on his head, Jon is a prime target of bounty hunters.

On the other hand, all good things must come to an end. President Christian discovers that the saying is real and true for her. Her lesbian affair is uncovered. Her murder of her husband become news and Lisa is kidnapped by the very group of people she chased across borders. The shoe is now on the wrong foot, and she herself handcuffed, and thrown in a bleak concrete cage, maybe the same one Doctor Jon Conneaut found himself in before he was rescued by a reclusive woodsman. Her life, however, does not end in this prison (of sorts), as she is also rescued and her life takes many twist and turns, eventually leading her back to her heart’s desire…the presidency and absolute power control…but will she really reclaim it? While she still has her deluded religious cult followers, there are many who would like to see her six feet under…

JON CONNEAUT WAS a tall, gangly man with thick dark hair. He looked younger than his forty-two years. Never really thinking of himself as handsome or extraordinarily charming, Jon shied away from women. Besides, he was now so involved in his job that relationships of any kind were out of the question. Some of his abortionist colleagues were married and held down practices across the country, but Jon found it difficult to hold down a normal life along with his practice of illegal abortion. A perpetual life of contrasting ideologies was too much for him. Also, unlike his colleagues, who preferred to live in one place and take their chances with being caught and imprisoned, Jon preferred to stay out of sight as much as possible. He liked to think of himself as a purist in the world of healthcare.

Of course, the doctor didn’t make the large sums of money as his colleagues, but anonymity was of primary concern for him. In fact, he rather enjoyed the reclusive life. Being unknown helped heal his guilt. No one would know his wrongness or his righteousness. His life, his chosen profession was a dichotomy of conflict, but someone had to step forward and help the impoverished women of this country…and even the aristocratic women whose secrecy was a religion. Abortion is such a simple word with such acidic social responses. Jon was not God and damn glad of it.

However, since its abolishment Dr. Conneaut searched his soul and decided that the anti-abortionists were just as wrong as their opponents. Instead of reason, they used Biblical sound bites to determine that abortion clinics were death camps. Making that judgment motivated them to kill doctors, nurses, secretaries, and blow up every vulnerable clinic in America. He had no choice, at least in his mind, but to do what he felt to be right. With the advent of an overturning of the Roe vs. Wade decision by the Supreme Court, Jon Conneaut was considered a criminal. For the most part he was not sought out by governmental agencies, many of which were sympathizers with his cause. Instead, he and his colleagues were hunted down primarily by radical pro-life movements all in the name of God of course. Everything in this third decade of the twenty-first century was a God event. Jon was an atheist and acted on his own moral authority, contrary to the current social imperative preached by the government.

The Crimson Shame

A Review

by

Stan Grimes

A Book of Two Tales of War in a Dystopic Country

The unthinkable? Civil rights law has disappeared. Abortion rights canceled. Offenders and defenders breaking antiabortion rules and rights for women become enemies of the state, facing imprisonment or worse.

The First Story – The Abortionists in a Theocratic Country

In 2035 United States was ruled by an autocratic closet lesbian President, Lisa Christian. She's 48 years old and serving a third term as the apostle for the God Fundamentalist Nation or GFN. Its Christian dogma is used as a weapon to maintain power. And to rewrite constitutional and common freedoms. Disobedience is considered an act of treason against the United States.

Author Stan Grimes describes how one man's mission is to protect women's rights. Dr. Jon Conneaut, a doctor and an abortionist subversive, provides his skills for an underground organization that flourishes within the depths of human despair.

Solid friendships and love bonds grow in an underground rebel organization, the Progressive Party. That is where the very brave abortionist embraces his life's calling at any cost. Dr. Conneaut struggles to restore the female right to terminate unwanted pregnancies one patient at a time. The specter of death or, worst, a constant companion.

He and covert friends found providing safe, anonymous underground abortions irresistible. But the abortion abolitionist appeared in the cross hairs of President Lisa Christian, becoming a hunted enemy of the state in a war against tyranny and theocracy. Like any warfighter, his journey is filled with heartbreak, the death of friends and lovers, torture, and becoming a reluctant refugee with a $5 million bounty.

The loneliness of his bone-deep dreadful fear pulls on our hearts and imagination to a time when global wars were fought for human rights. Dr. Jon Conneaut experiences one white knuckle moment to the next. Each one meant to end his life.

The Second Story – Two Military Snipers

Like a true psychotic monster that keeps returning President, Lisa Christian returns, bringing new reasons to hate her. By the book's second half, we're eagerly awaiting this bad girl's comeuppance. And this is where author Stan Grimes' literary skills shine. He's created a masterful, ruthless villain, President Lisa Christian.

Our exemplary military leaders finally decided enough was enough and hired two military snipers, Brian and Jake. They plot the death of a United States President. The best-laid plans hit all sorts of walls. Just when you think the war is lost. That mankind has lost all human rights and freedoms, and the military has failed us again. Every day Americans band together to deliver their unique answer to ending oppressors and oppression.

The closing scenes are well crafted, bringing the reader to the moment of the unexpected dramatic conclusion.

My Opinion

Arguably this work of fiction comes too close to current reality.

I heard a Russian say recently that America was like a big family. No matter how we fight amongst ourselves, we present a solid collective to the world. I felt this when Stan Grimes' book came to its last paragraph.

If you are unaware of the Russian-Ukraine war or feel that this war has nothing to do with you or America, read The Crimson Shame by Stan Grimes.

This author's creative work reminds, introduces, and perhaps informs us that we're moments away from the unthinkable. Stan Grimes's book The Crimson Shame can be a teachable moment. In my opinion, this was the aim of the author.

This is a must-read that includes a happy ever after that offers hope.

Reviewed by Barbara Cerda