The Book of Daniel

Daniel includes snippets of his family biography as a way of informing the audience about the generational traumas that have shaped his own life. He describes the antisemitism and the imperial violence that drove his grandparents to build a new life in America, as well as the poverty and suffering that they endured upon arrival. The trauma of losing family members to factory fires and pogroms informs his mother and father’s desire to build a better life for their family. Rather than adhering to something as fallible and as tenuous as the American Dream, however, they decide to invest their hopes in the ideology of communism. They believe that this can build a better world for their children, allowing them to escape the cycles of violence, racism, and poverty that have defined their family history until this point. In the aftermath of World War II, this is particularly pronounced. The traumatic reality of the Holocaust and the ascension to superpower status of a communist country such as the Soviet Union gives Paul and Rochelle hope that, for the first time, they may be able to bring a halt to the recurring cycles of generational trauma. That same trauma, however, creates a society of fear and paranoia. The same trauma that informs their family history creates the context in which they are persecuted for their beliefs.

Susan and Daniel grow up witnessing their parents’ political protests and attempts to change the world for the better, but these efforts only create more trauma. Daniel witnesses his father having his arm broken while attending a communist concert. The danger of trying to build a better world, he comes to understand, is very real. The state cannot tolerate the idealism of his parents and, whether rightly or wrongly, they are accused of espionage. The trial of Paul and Rochelle is the most pointed example of generational trauma in the novel. Daniel and Susan are ripped away from their parents at an age when they cannot understand what is happening. They are forced to grow up in the shadow of this trial, and then live the rest of their lives knowing that their parents have been executed by the same state in which they now live. As a result of their parents’ attempts to break the cycles of violence that define their family history, the children are even more traumatized than ever before.

For Susan and Daniel, existence under the state that executed their parents is traumatic in itself. Daniel, for example, describes how he is denied complete political agency. He can either adhere to the political status quo, even though he will be forever marked out by his parents’ supposed crimes, or he can do what the state expects him to do and rebel, though their expectation removes any power his protest might have. Similarly, Susan’s attempts to replicate her parents’ radicalism continually fail, causing her to lose faith in the world. Both siblings try to break the cycle of violence in their own tragic ways. Susan takes her own life, succumbing to the overwhelming trauma of her existence. Daniel relentlessly confronts his traumatic past, writing it all out for the world to read. His trauma manifests in his abusive behavior and his relentless self-interrogation, as well as his despondency about his ability to change the world. Cycles of trauma define Daniel’s life, but in a far more pessimistic way than he might ever have expected. The traumas have mounted and metastasized, to the point where any hope or idealism which might have belonged to his parents has been ground into dust. The true consequence of generational trauma is to rob Daniel of his optimism that it can be ended.