Review of "The Ecstatic Pessimist"

In late May, 2022, I tuned into the Carla Gericke Show, which featured an interview of Carla Gericke talking about her book The Ecstatic Pessimist: Stories of Hope (Mostly). I only knew Ms Gericke as the Free State Project’s former president, so I had no idea that years ago she had launched a career as a professional author. Wanting a break from more laborious reading which has fallen to me lately, I ordered "The Ecstatic Pessimist" and quickly discovered that it was much more than a mere autobiography.

The work is a compilation of Gericke’s autobiographical accounts, editorials, speeches and short stories written between 2004 and 2020. The autobiographical pieces cover Gericke’s upbringing in South Africa, her immigration to the United States, and finally her transition from a career as a lawyer into one of a creative writer. Far from a dry chronicle, the pieces are set as intriguing stories with a fair amount of humor.

The editorials and speeches are great polemic against the coercive State. You get a firsthand view into the Free State Project’s challenges and how activists have been overcoming them to expand civil liberties in New Hampshire. Anyone interested in advocacy for liberty can take these accounts as a playbook to implement in other parts of the world… though assuredly Gericke would beckon you to join them in the Live Free or Die State!

My personal favorites have been the short stories and “flash” fictions which paint compelling characters in unique situations. Some of these situations may be quite unlike lived experience – I for one have never been a deaf girl in a deaf family, nor a Johannesburg socialite – yet the stories masterfully resolve to the universal vulnerabilities and occasional triumphs of spirit which define the human condition. Across the span of few pages flow profoundly moving narratives about what happens in the conscience when we lose that chance to say farewell to someone we love, or how a child’s rebellious act of kindness can propel a nation to glory worldwide.

Originally published September 22nd, 2022, on Facebook.