Cross Down

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2023

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Prologue 1-Part 1

Part 2

Parts 3-4

Part 5

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Glock

The Glock in Cross Down is symbolic of the dangers of a shoot-first response to perceived threats. The Austrian manufacturer Glock makes America’s preferred service weapon. In Cross Down, Sampson uses a Glock 17, while most military service and law enforcement officers carry the more well-known Glock 19. The handgun is known for its reliability, durability, and ease of use. In the novel, whenever Sampson is threatened, he immediately pulls out his Glock. His quick-draw response to perceived threats reflects a militaristic ideology. Sampson was trained first as a soldier and then as a police officer. His shoot-first instinct serves him well, saving his life on multiple occasions.

And yet at times, this self-preserving instinct leaves Sampson without options. When Sampson kills his attackers, he loses the ability to question them. This happens on multiple occasions, depriving Sampson of a valuable source of intelligence. When Sampson threatens Bibi Ahmadi by shoving his Glock in the guide’s mouth, he creates an enemy rather than an ally and physically (temporarily) removes the man’s ability to speak and thus provide information.

Sampson’s chronic habit of turning to violence leaves him without sources of intelligence, without key allies that could have proven useful, and without a clear path to solving the central problem in the novel. This is an analogy for the United States military’s entrance into Afghanistan post 9/11, an moment in recent history that is central to the novel’s plot and themes, which left the country without sources of intelligence, allies in the region, or a path to victory. In the novel, this history results in General Grissom’s son dying and Grissom turning against the Constitution and his oath.

Disgruntled Employee

As General Grissom’s covert army of former military and law enforcement personnel advance on their objective, their motives become clear. While motives are wide-ranging, the most prevalent among the lower levels of recruits is the disgruntled employee's motive for revenge.

General Grissom, in his final push for the White House, quotes the revenge novel The Count of Monte Cristo as he advances on his goal of overthrowing the government and replacing it with a dictatorship. He was embittered and disgruntled by the death of his son, a soldier serving in Afghanistan. His losses sparked anger in him that he harnesses in others to overthrow the government responsible for sending his son to a desert far from home.

Maynard acknowledges that some of his recruits are men and women who were fired from their government jobs for various offenses. Maynard sends two disgruntled men on a mission in Atlanta: “Humphrey, a former Atlanta cop who was let go after too many civilians complain of excessive force, and George, a former Atlanta firefighter who lost his job after stripping the clothes off a rookie and tossing him into a firehouse shower” (180). Pensions were lost and reputations destroyed. Maynard takes advantage of this discontent to inspire former government employees to seek revenge on the entity that harmed them. These insurrectionists fight for revenge, though they justify it as a cleaning of a broken system.

The disgruntled employee motif supports the novel’s larger idea of the decline in American exceptionalism and its impact on American morale and faith in government institutions.

Stolen Cars

In Cross Down, the theft of cars by Sampson, the heroic protagonist, suggests that the end justifies the means until it does not. As Sampson struggles to stay out of Maynard’s crosshairs while searching for answers, he repeatedly breaks the law. Initially, the violations are minor; for example, Sampson parks his car in a no-parking zone to take a phone call. Later he steals a car to escape detection. Initially, this action evokes feelings of regret for what he has done to the woman whose car he takes. Several chapters later, Sampson is stealing cars without a second thought. By the novel’s end, Sampson is stealing cars so frequently that the action isn’t even described. He simply takes the cars he needs in pursuit of his moral end goal. However, there is a line that Sampson does not cross in pursuit of his end goal. When Bibi Ahmadi runs away, leaving Deacon and himself stranded and thus endangering their mission, Sampson prevents Deacon from killing the man. For Sampson, the ends cannot always justify the means. He remains repulsed at the slaughter in the Afghan village even as he acknowledges the drugs present in the debris.

While Sampson’s breaking and bending of morality to achieve his end goal has its limits, Grissom’s end goal of installing, as he sees it, a better form of government, is his justification for all of his crimes. Grissom believes ardently in the righteousness of his goal. As such, he has no qualms about leveling the village in Afghanistan that was the source of opium that was the funding source for his coup. Likewise, Grissom is willing to recruit and use morally bankrupt characters knowing he will destroy them after his goal is achieved. Where Sampson draws a line, Grissom draws none.