I start the New Year with many irons in the fire, as usual. Ideas for essays. Short fiction. The foremost and most important one is the soon to be finished manuscript for A Contrite Spirit. This is a novel that stretches the boundaries of what a “spiritual novel” is, and challenges preconceived notions about Heaven and Hell, Good and Evil, and the struggle between them for the human soul. Readers of my last novel, In Love and War, will recognize a backdrop of vicious combat from which a saner, more compassionate understanding between the two sides comes about. Please know that violence doesn’t have to lead to understanding (most likely it leads to just the opposite) but I believe we human beings have a responsibility to try to fashion meaning out of that which destroys meaning in the traditional sense of the word.
The main character, Hyrum, is an everyman who endures Hell on Earth and his spiritual healing is the focus of most of the book. As his family grows and prospers so too does Hyrum’s spirit. But then another war comes, this time consuming not only him but his children’s lives. How will Hyrum and his family survive?
There is madness, both of combat and of mental illness, a disease of the soul. There is haunting borne of guilt and transgression and a redemption as these things are overcome.
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