A Q&A with author of “Miranda’s War,” a novel set in Lincoln

Chicago attorney Howard Foster is the author of Miranda’s War: A Novel of the UpZone set in Lincoln. The protagonist, a wealthy Lincolnite married to a professor, uses her new position on the Conservation Commission to fight what she sees as hypocritical zoning attitudes in town. Foster will give a talk and book-signing on Monday, Feb. 5 at 1 p.m at the Lincoln Public Library. The Lincoln Squirrel recently interviewed him by email.

Tell me a bit about how you came to write the novel. Why did you set it in Lincoln specifically? Clearly you’ve spent some time in Lincoln—did you ever live here, and if so, when?

I grew up in Newton and have always thought Lincoln was unique and fascinating. I’ve lived in Chicago for the last 28 years and have traveled all over the country and have not seen a place like it culturally and politically.

Have you been involved with disputes over local planning and zoning, either as an attorney or a property owner?

Yes, as a lawyer, over cell towers. Very dull.

Miranda seems to be a contradiction in some ways. For example, she’s bright, cultured and well educated, yet she scoffs at academics. Why?

She is married to an academic and reviles them. She thinks they are guilt-ridden hypocrites, but she loves to live among them.

Do you consider Miranda to be a hero, antihero, or something else? Put another way, do you share her beliefs about zoning?

That’s a great question. She is true to what she regards as the original mission of the Lincoln Board of Selectmen who imposed two-acre zoning circa 1951. They wanted to stop sprawl after Route 128 was built and keep the town semi-rural. But she is also using her cause to embarrass the academic liberals she disdains. She wants them to have to admit they are snobs and elitists.

What made Miranda the way she is?

She comes from a small city in northern Vermont that is fairly rural, and was exceptionally bright, ambitious, socially snobbish, driven to marry someone like Archer. She also has a mental illness, impulse control disorder, which makes her interactions with others fraught.

Your publisher’s website says it promotes books for “readers of a conservative or libertarian bent.” Would you use those words to describe yourself? How have your views on politics and culture evolved during your life?

I am politically center-right, not libertarian. I know the publisher, Adam Bellow, who started Liberty Island. Over time, I have become much more interested in economics. It explains everything that happens.

The book talks a lot about wealthy suburban guilt. Do you think many of the people in real life in towns like Lincoln are hypocrites who aren’t sincere about giving economic opportunity to lower-income people? 

Yes.

The book raises some basic questions about the nature of zoning and land use. In a perfect world, how much control do you think should people be allowed to have over things like the appearance of their neighbor’s houses and how other people’s property in their town is used?

A lot. I took some liberties in the book. For example, I do not believe Lincoln has a [house] color code in its zoning ordinance—at least I could not find it in the statute—so someone could paint their house bright orange and get away with it. Yet nobody does that. So there is a de facto color code in place. Lincoln is more regimented than almost every other community in the Boston area and far more so than any in the Midwest. The people who live there want that, and those who don’t like it don’t live there. That seems fine with me.

You obviously wrote the book  before Trump became president and focused a spotlight on political correctness, isolationism, and “America First.” If you were to start writing the book today in light of the events and conversations over the past year, would you do anything differently?

I think Miranda does mention Trump’s name once, but that was, as you say, before he was elected.  My publisher, Mr. Bellow, thinks she is a Lincoln version of Trump. There are definitely some similarities, though she is much more refined than him. I can see her using a phrase like “let’s make Lincoln great again,” building more of a wall with the outside world, disdaining those that want to enter illegally and change the town, etc. If I were writing it now, I would draw this parallel explicitly, and so would everyone around her. That would be very troublesome for her because Trump is so unpopular in Lincoln.

What’s been the reception to the book? Have you written other books, and do you plan to write another?
This is my first. The reception has been decent. I’d like more events like the one in Lincoln. Mr. Bellow would like me to write a sequel which takes Miranda to the next level. I’m thinking about it.