Description

A Diminished Thing, or Sex and One Superposition examines one year in the lives of a San Bernardino family, the Tethers, during a traumatic period in American history not unlike our own. The father, a high school English teacher, suffers from erectile dysfunction and a quixotic belief in his own ability to perceive the Truth.  While trying to solve his sexual impotence, the protagonist also experiences a variety of health problems, careening from the agony of kidney stones to a male enhancement medication which brings about unforeseen consequences. His attempts to compensate for his libidinal failure result only in greater frustration. Meanwhile, his ever-patient wife battles the Standards movement which is slowly demoralizing her “under-achieving” school.           

Against the backdrop of this family’s search for conjugal happiness, emotional maturity, and educational evidence of progress, a bumbling, inarticulate President of the United States presides. A compassionate conservative, Herb Plant has invaded several Middle Eastern countries yet is the sort of commander-in-chief who prefers to play Hearts in an Internet card room rather than manage affairs of state, a chore he finds too complicated and too time-consuming, and which he prefers to leave to his churlish vice-president, Pete Knotts, and his loyal political advisor, Cap Geiger. When the civics team from Mr. Tether’s school wins a national Constitution competition in Washington, D.C., the brilliance and immaturity of these students comes into direct conflict with the idiocy and insecurity of our country’s chief executive.