Mary Backs

Mary Backs is an author in Zwangzug.

Books

Backs has published a trilogy, The Seven-Color Theorem, that parodies socialism. The title refers to the fact that any map drawn on a torus (donut-shape), no matter how complex, can always be colored with at most seven colors so that no two entities sharing a border are the same color, a truth that the protagonist tries to prove. The books are all set in the same fictional country, a socialist (or perhaps communist) society that stifles freedom. In the dystopia, people are randomly forced into tedious occupations with little intellectual stimulation. An authoritarian government mandates equality in all things: the intelligent are not given opportunity to advance within their work. Competition is impossible: a desire to "make everybody feel special" permeates the corrupt educational system.

A film adaptation of the trilogy, featuring a soundtrack by Red Knight, is in the works.

First

The novels focus on an would-be mathematician. He has been given the menial position of bakery janitor, but in the first book, he becomes slowly fascinated with the donuts his co-workers bake. Eventually, his obsession drives him to crime. After hours, he sneaks back into the bakery and bakes his own donut to own and keep. (Possession of private property is illegal in his nation.) The book ends after his moment of triumph, his prize safe in his house.

Second

This, however, leads to a nervous effort to hide from the police, the general plot of the second book. The protagonist balances his humdrum life in the bakery with his contraband rebellion outside. But eventually, his crime is discovered. The climax is a dramatic fight scene: guns are banned in the nation, so he fends the police off with his mop. Growing tired, he finally gives up. Instead of holding out, he hides the donut under his shirt, but the time he spends doing so allows the police to arrest him. As the second book finishes, he is sent to prison indefinitely without a trial.

Third

Languishing in his cell, he tries to solve a topological puzzle, sketching on the surface of the donut. It begins to flake over the course of the third book, a degeneration that is a metaphor for the protagonist himself as he slowly loses physical strength and mental connection with reality. He traces patterns over the donut to create a fictional world of different nations. As the oppressive imprisonment drives him insane, his thoughts weave between his confinement and his imaginary capitalist paradise, where he is hallucinatorally successful (more so than others) through his own genius and effort. (The author Backs skillfully switches fluidly between one fictional reality and another, seemingly well aware of the irony.) The final chapter ends with him receiving an award in the country that has become the truest existence for him: his mathematical insight has solved a long-standing problem. In the epilogue, prison guards extricate his corpse from the cell, but are unable to understand the brilliant proof, written in his own blood, that covers the ceiling, floor, and walls.

StateNations

As a promotion for her books, Backs created a website, StateNations.zz. It is an interactive computer game where users can create their own country-or countries, as Backs did. The first nation was a copy of the "real" nation in which her books are set, but she let it die and replaced it with one patterned off her own ideals: the capitalist federation into which her protagonist hallucinates. This was recently deleted for unspecified violation of site rules, much to Backs' chagrin. Before its deletion, its web page read something like the following:

The Untied States of America are a massive, economically powerful nation, notable for their attempts at world domination. Their diverse, squabbling population of 300 million people enjoy, or are oppressed by, countless economic freedoms, and are also politically free to vote any idiot into office.

The bureaucratic morass of the government focuses on Attack, though Disorder and Commerce are also on the agenda. Tax rates are between 10 and 35%. A powerhouse of a private sector is led by the Finance, Manufacturing, and Professional Services industries.

Voting is voluntary, counting votes of the opposition party may also be, the government may detain foreign nationals indefinitely, and the nation's political style is forcibly imposed on foreign nations. Crime is a problem. The Untied States' national animal is the bald eagle, which has recently been removed from a list of endangered species, and its currency is the dollar.