Crusader by Edward Bloor
"Crusader" by Edward Bloor is a nuanced novel that delves into themes of morality, prejudice, and the complexity of human emotions through the experiences of its protagonist, Roberta Ritter. Set against the backdrop of a struggling video arcade, the story begins with Roberta involved in promoting a virtual-reality game that trivializes the historical conflict of the Crusades by depicting players scoring points through violence against "Muslims." This premise ignites a confrontation with the realities of hate and prejudice, as Roberta learns about the intertwined nature of good and evil in human behavior.
The narrative explores Roberta's personal struggles, including her long-standing denial regarding her mother's violent death. As the plot unfolds, she encounters various characters whose lives challenge her assumptions, including a friend grappling with the fallout of hate crimes, and a cousin undergoing a transformative journey after a disfiguring illness. Bloor intricately weaves together multiple storylines that reveal the often painful truths hidden beneath societal facades, demonstrating how ignorance and prejudice can lead to violence.
Roberta's journey towards understanding culminates in her grappling with her family's dark past, ultimately leading her to a path of compassion and moral clarity. The novel closes with Roberta's poignant act of remembrance for her mother and the street kids affected by violence, signifying her evolution into a figure of empathy and moral courage. "Crusader" serves as a commentary on the challenges of confronting difficult truths in a world rife with superficiality and division.
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Crusader by Edward Bloor
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1999
Type of work: Novel
The Work
As Crusader opens, Roberta Ritter is at work, assembling an imposing “Crusader” figure as a promotion for the newest interactive video experience for her family’s struggling video arcade. In this virtual-reality game, players score points by “killing” hordes of “Muslims.” When one of the mall-shop owners, a Muslim, objects to the premise of the game and explains the actual history of the Crusades, Roberta confronts the difficult truth that good and evil are inextricably bound in the human character, that ignorance breeds prejudice, that prejudice leads to hate, and that hate expresses itself in violence. It is the beginning of her education into the wisdom of tolerance. It is also a lesson in the need to confront even the most painful realities. Roberta herself has spent seven years insulating herself from the implications of her own mother’s death—knifed during a robbery of the family’s previous arcade—by telling herself that her mother had died from a heart attack.
In a novel whose multiple plot lines hinge on the deception of surfaces and the complex reality of good and evil, Bloor tests the need to confront, the ease with which difficult realities are ignored, and the disparity between appearances and realities. Nothing is as it appears—Roberta, as an intern for the local television station, learns techniques for splicing videotape in ways that create entirely new “realities.” The mall where she works struggles to stay open while pretending to be prosperous, even launching an interior renovation centering on a showy fountain that is ironically connected with ancient, rusted pipes that end up leaking sewer gas. Dawg, a muscle-bound football lunkhead, is blamed for the rash of hate crimes because the police are certain that he “looks” like a redneck. Railroaded, Dawg is outfitted with an electronic monitoring device but, refusing to be framed for something he did not do, he runs deliberately into highway traffic in a stunning act of suicide. His friend, called Ironman because of his bulk and his T-shirts bearing Satanic legends, reveals an unexpected depth of feeling over his friend’s death, grieving so deeply that he is driven to a suicide attempt of his own.
In short, Roberta’s world stays stubbornly contradictory. Every assumption she makes about people eventually shatters. Her beautiful cousin, so focused on her own photogenic looks, is afflicted by chicken pox. Scarred and devastated, she undergoes a spiritual transformation and reveals a genuine compassion for others, particularly Ironman, and ultimately decides to become a police officer. A local rising political star promises to help the mall, while his son negotiates to have it torn down and replaced by a swanky golf course. More distressing, Roberta comes to understand that the hate crimes against the Muslim shop owner have been perpetrated by her own uncle, a decorated Gulf War veteran who struggles with a secret drinking problem, all in an attempt to close the mall to protect the family from losing everything if the arcade has to declare bankruptcy.
Honesty is even more painful when it comes to Roberta’s father, who ignores Roberta (and the arcade’s considerable financial dilemma) to pursue a romance with the mall’s manager. Roberta’s friendship with a police detective investigating the hate crimes, however, gives her access to long-filed evidence from her mother’s murder, including the gruesome surveillance tape showing the knifing. Roberta’s investigation of a snake tattoo on the assailant’s arm leads her ultimately to determine that the killer, once a street addict, is now a charismatic televangelist whose cable show, which Roberta watches during long nights she is left alone by her father, celebrates forgiveness. Roberta discovers that her father had once been a cocaine addict and had hired the man to rob the family video store to pay off a loan shark, whom the father had used to pay for drugs. Although the father never intended the killing, Roberta cannot forgive him.
Mrs. Weiss, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust who now owns a card shop in the mall and who serves as the novel’s uncompromising moral conscience, had taken a keen interest in Roberta’s upbringing. Upon her death, Mrs. Weiss leaves Roberta the shop and her home. Thus, Roberta is in a position to estrange herself from her father, which she does.
In the powerful closing scene, Roberta goes to the spot where her family arcade had stood and lays a wreath made of objects she had kept from her mother—photos, her arcade smock, her beloved Dr. Seuss books. She is overcome with unexpected compassion for those street kids whose tough lives make violent crime inevitable and hope difficult. Roberta’s heart expanded, her compassion evident, she prays for them. It is a deeply spiritual closing. In a world of political spin-doctoring, phony “reality” talk shows, hate crimes that scapegoat minorities, virtual reality games, videotape faux-realities, and expensive cosmetic makeovers (all elements of Bloor’s intricate plot), Roberta emerges as an uncompromising point of moral honesty, at last a crusader of her own.
Bibliography
Atkins, Kathy. “Welcome to Tangerine, and Be Careful: An Interview with Edward Bloor.” St. Petersburg Times, February 18, 2002.
“Edward Bloor.” In Contemporary Authors. Vol. 166. Detroit: Gale, 2003.