Not Since Straub and King: Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee Team Up

I've got no details from the 2010 Gathering in Chicago, but Ted Dekker's brand manager just mentioned that Dekker and Tosca Lee are teaming up for a book in 2011.

Needless to say, the last time writers of this caliber teamed up, the world got a little surprise called The Talisman.*

No pressure!

*The last time heroes of this caliber teamed up, Batman fought Superman in DKR. And won.

UPDATED: Dekker spills his guts on it.

The Man With Hammered Nails for the Pupils of His Eyes

I'd been chopping most of the day. Chips of granite spread at my feet, dusted my sweaty shirt, clouded my spectacles. But I'd made progress. The boulder had scars on it: closer, certainly, to the monument I wanted than it had been that morning.

A man walked out of the Infinity building, grey suit, red tie, briefcase in hand. He stumbled against my rock, and staggered to his knees. I put the axe down and helped him up. It was there, his uncertain hand on my tricep, elbow in my palm, that I looked into his face and saw the pupils of his eyes: they were the heads of nails, and his eyes, I am quite certain now, were wooden balls, smoothed on a lathe.

He blinked, one lid catching, and slowly crossing over the nail.

"Your shoulder," he said. I smiled, proud of the muscle my endeavors had built. "It is torn. You are ruining yourself. You don't look well."

I helped him up and stepped back, annoyed. "How can you see anything?"

"I can't."

"Why do you have nails where your pupils ought to be?"

"They keep the eyes inside my head."

After a silence too long, he wandered down the sidewalk. I did not look to see if he navigated the intersection safely, but returned to my task, my shoulder throbbing.

---

This is completely and wholly, as usual, the fault of a far greater writer.

The Sheer Genius of Sheared Gnus

The difference between "sheared" and "shorn" is subtly insane. A sheep is sheared. A man's hair is shorn.

The shorn locks fall to the floor.
The sheared wool falls to the floor.

Unless the locks are sheer, in which the sheer, shorn locks fall to the floor. If the wool is sheer, it is still sheared, for sure.

Don't get me started on shoeshine from Poland, because if I dab Polish polish onto sheer sheared wool and streak it through my sheer, shorn hair, call the police, unless they are Polish. They'll polish me off.

Hey! What about the gnu? Not much, what's gnu with you?

Note: When teaching English as a second language, I recommend saving this lesson for last.

Havah: Addenda

I was discussing the novel with an imaginary friend of mine, and I realized that I forgot to mention some big ideas that are very organic to Tosca Lee's Havah: The Story of Eve:

The origin of the Lilith myth
The origin of the "Venus of Willendorf" statuette (or its predecessor)
The truth and myth of what we now call "race."
The dichotomy of the natural strain and natural primacy of monogamy.
The substance of divorce.
The meaning of animal sacrifice.
The "primitive/progressive" myth.
An exploration of our distance from God.
The importance of blood and death for the redemption of men.
The distinction of naming.
Man in God's image.

And...
The obviousness of God's handiwork in childbirth.
For those of you keeping score at home.

Havah: The Story of Eve - Further Explorations

If you enjoyed Anita Diamant's The Red Tent, Tosca Lee's Havah: The Story of Eve will leave you breathless. Havah exceeds the excellent The Red Tent in nearly every category: delving into more intimate historical detail, stretching the scope of speculation with sound research, and breathing life into characters that could so easily fall flat. Importantly, Havah avoids the stereotyping of our ancestors that plagued some parts of The Red Tent.

If you think you know the plot of Havah, think again. It truly is an experience you won't soon forget.

Here are just a handful of the questions that I found being addressed through the course of the compelling narrative. Not only did I experience the alien lives of our ancestors and origins in Havah, but I also was subtly challenged to contemplate all manner of mysteries both great and small,* including:

The source of iron content in human blood.
The roots of Satan's "Lord of the Flies" monniker.
Death as an alternative control.
The miracle of self-awareness.
Insects as sin-amplifiers.
The concept of naive superintelligence.
The meaning of language.
The origin of dragon mythology.
The birth of idolatry.
The importance of (what we now call) incest.
The meaning of guilt.

And there is much more than that. There is blood in this book. Bad blood. Good blood. God's blood.

When Demon: A Memoir debuted in 2007, it became readily evident that a new, inventive and meaningful storyteller (in the deepest sense of that word) had burst upon the scene.

Demon: A Memoir and Havah: The Story of Eve are companion books, but this is unlikely to be apparent at first blush. Though a great span of time (from origin to present) separates their settings and all but two characters (both of whom are critical, but also almost never overtly "on stage") are entirely different, both stories make it clear that a new world (and worldview) of Providence and the fantastic has been birthed by a most capable midwife in Tosca Lee.

*One of my favorite qualities of Havah is that there is a subtle shift from romance languages (in the Garden) to grittier Anglo-Saxon vocabulary in exile. Lee is nothing if not a writer who builds in layers.

Havah: Why We Matter

If Joan Armatrading gets down to the DNA, I know an author who goes much, much deeper than that.

Tosca Lee takes on the very moment of human consciousness in Havah: The Story of Eve. Her sophomore effort brims with texture and flavor, character and real ideas. It also might stand a little too close and pin you against the wall until you give yourself over. And it won't necessarily make you a better person. At least, not at first.

The reader will enter the thoughts of Eve (the titular Havah) from her awakening, through a personal, familial and societal arc that doesn't just touch on important questions about origins, but delves deeply and puts muscle, skin and, crucially, teeth, to the oft-overlooked framework of what we think we know.

I've written in the past that Lee's first effort, Demon: A Memoir was likely the best novel written in the new century. Havah exceeds Demon in scope, character and detail, and, on those three merits, now wears the crown.

There's a great scene in the film Aliens where the good guys are bunkered safely inside a room and tracking the monsters progress against their location. One of the marines is using an infrared (I think) tracker to see where the beasts are, and is calling out their distance from the room. 9 meters, 8 meters, and so on, sort of a "wait until you see the whites of their eyes before shooting" moment.

When the marine says, "6 meters," Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver) says, "They can't be. That's in the room."

And it dawns on them. The monsters are bigger, stronger, more numerous, and, most chillingly, smarter than they imagined.

That's Lee's latest effort for you. One of the best living voices, one of the most disarming and delving literary minds, is actually getting better.

God help us.

Havah Inspires a Free and Easy Contest

Tosca Lee, author of Havah (which I am currently reading*), is giving away a few interesting Genesis-related prizes. Just go to Toscology to enter the drawing. Yeah, it's that simple.

By the way Havah: The Story of Eve, officially released today. Look for it a B&N or wherever you shop, today!

*I'll have a review up when I finish, but I do have to say that any book that switches from French, Latin and Greek-origin language to Anglo-Saxon sixty pages in just to make a point is well ahead of the game.

Demon Takes Silver: Thanks God it Isn't a Werewolf

ForeWord Magazine has announced its Book of the Year Award winners.

My favorite book of 2007, Demon: A Memoir has taken the silver medal in its category.

Incidentally, the full list of winners, medalists, and finalists provides a pirate's chest of the treasure from independent presses.

Congratulations, Tosca Lee, and all the authors recognized by ForeWard Magazine.

I think this means I have taste. Chili dogs and rotgut are on the house...er, cave!

Demon to Appear at Awards Banquet

My favorite modern weird book on the planet, Demon: A Memoir, just got nominated for a major award.

Okay, not that major award. A different one. One that, should an author win it, comes with a thingy that goes on the bookcovers of re-issues, a lot more attention in bookstores and, if I'm not mistaken, a compass in the stock.

Wait, that's Christmas Story again.

But, hey, this really is a Christmas story, because sometimes the good guys win at the end, sometimes no one sees you in the bunny costume, sometimes you do get the Red Ryder bb gun and sometimes, just sometimes, the publishing industry realizes it has something really great on its hands.

Congratulations to all the Christy nominees, including Tosca Lee, but special congratulations to the nominating committee for recognizing what a literary triumph Demon really is.

Soli Deo gloria.

Via Toscology

It's All About Meme: Book Memories

Ugh. A human touched me.

Apparently, the only way to rid myself of the mental infection is to respond and pass it on.

1. Do you associate reading particular books with the places you read them or events of the time you read them?

Generally no. There is one exception. I've read the Lord of the Rings probably eight times so far in my life. The very first time was by candlelight, at a dilapidated antique writer's desk.

Believe it or not.

2. Do you remember the books you read or do they fade quickly? Or do you remember some better than others? How about remember details like character names, not just overall plot?

I stop reading any book after page 100 if I determine I'm not making memories with it. I think any author I pick up has earned a hundred from me. If they can't skewer me with something good by then, there's no match to be had. I'll give every author a second shot with a subsequent novel, but if that one doesn't do anything by the 100 page threshold, it'll take a lot for me to try a third time with them.

If I make it through to the end of the book, it is highly likely that it'll stick with me. If the story was great or rotten, it will stick with me forever. If it had some engaging qualities, but nothing spectacular (or embarrassingly bad) it has a shorter half-life in my brain.

It has been a long time since I've come across a new plot, so, while those are easy to remember, there are characters and scenes too vivid to ever let go: Tod Clifton, The Unman Weston, The Child at the Window (Salem's Lot), The Seventh Circle, Sancho Panza, Mrs. Prest, Jo March, Frankenstein's Monster, Bunny Corcoran, The Misfit, Lucian and on and on. I still remember the final sentence of Stephen King's "The Long Walk" and the brilliant mix of release, uplift, defiance and glory it evokes as I recall it today, twenty years after my first (and only) read.

3. Have you ever forgotten you’ve read/own a book and borrowed/bought it again?

Quoting Luke Skywalker on the scaffolding - "No. That's impossible."

+++

The problem with memes is that you must have some sort of relationship with humans in order to complete its requirements. I eschew such things, save when my belly rumbles.

So I'll just tag some people who wouldn't know me from a passing bus, which distinguishes them in no way from my closest (imaginary) friends:

Nicole Petrino-Salter

Tom Lommel

Tosca Lee

Felicia Day

E.E. Knight

Further Notes on Demon: A Memoir - SPOILERS

**SPOILERS** FOR THE EYES OF DEMON READERS ONLY ** SPOILERS

Please keep in mind that you aren't even supposed to be reading this. No humans allowed. I only stuck this journal on the internet so I didn't lose it under a sandwich or something. Spoilers are a rotten thing, but sometimes it becomes impossible to write about the more complex points of the novel without them. So stop reading. Not that you should have been reading even this.

The memoir is not of a demon, but of an editor at a mid-sized publishing house and his interaction with a demon. There is a point in the story where it seems unclear whether the memoir will be contracted for publication.

So, clearly, there were other hands that reversed this course. How would the memoir read from someone who knew Clay, helped to get it published, but never had any evidence that what he saw was real? I wonder if Clay's publisher promoted the book as the diary of a madman, a straight memoir or as fiction (and attributed it to Tosca Lee?)

I can't remember the term for a sequel that is a parallel to another character's experience (as opposed to subsequent to that experience) but if there's a sequel to Demon in the works, I'd love to see Religious Madness (An Inquiry into the Mysterious Events Surrounding the Publication of Demon: A Memoir). I'd love to see Demon retold from a complete skeptic's point of view, someone who has to choose blindness by the end of the retelling instead of admission.

It would make a great faux documentary, too.

In the Aspern Papers, Henry James recounts a gripping tale of a would-be biographer's attempts to wrest private letters of a famed dead poet (Jeffrey Aspern) from his estate. The book cuts into the heart of the agents of public exposure, and the lengths people will go to either maintain their privacy or capitalize on their experiences in public. As I read Demon, I found new parallels to James' classic novel, and I can't help but wonder: how much of Clay's exhaustion-driven, depression scarred, demon haunted memory made it to the page. How much of what he wrote made it to publication? Did his editors posthumously alter the story in anyway?

Who ensures the publication? The Lord? Or Lucian?

This book posseses my mind with holy fire. I aproach it with the obsession of Roy Batty in Blade Runner:

Questions. Morphology? Longevity? Incept dates?

Opening Line of a Novel - Important or Just Crucial? You Decide!

Dale James Arceneaux has a lively post on how to stage a good opening for a novel. I disagree with him slightly, in that I believe that the opening for Demon: A Memoir is actually perfect, not just okay.*

As for me, I'm a hundred pager. If I make it to page 100 and am not yet engaged in story, I'll put it down for good. I also realize that I am not the droid that Penguin is looking for.

*The line is this: "It was raining the night he found me." It works because ostensibly, we are reading a memoir. In eight words, Tosca tells us that this is a biography of a man who is sought under unfriendly conditions, that the story is about a relationship between two people who are not intimate with each other, but needful, and that our hero is hiding from something. If you can say that compellingly in less space, I'd love to see it. The paragraph that it introduced is haunting and tense.

In short, the devil had me at "Hello."

Character Creation: A Man in Third Heaven

I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago (whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows) was caught up to the third heaven. And I know that this man was caught up into paradise and heard things too sacred to be put into words, things that a person is not permitted to speak. On behalf of such an individual I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except about my weaknesses.

Paul writes this to the Corinthians, almost as an aside.

"Oh, by the way, I know this guy who went to heaven. So, how's life going? Did you see the big game?"

This is a great example of introducing the supernatural to a story. Paul isn't writing fiction, but relaying a history, of course, but the principle he employs applies to storytelling.

Heaven is separate, real, experiential and unique, and Paul nails all four qualities in a short passage. Third heaven is a state wherein the witness was "caught up" (separate), either in the body or out of it (real), heard things too sacred for words (experiential), and whose experience was worthy of boasting (unique.)

Readers of the supernatural who have no real interest in spiritual things will be drawn to the realness and the experience, but have little thirst for separateness or uniqueness. Both Stephen King and Neil Gaiman are masters of the first two qualities. Their strange gods/heroes will have dirt under their nails, and can navigate a fistfight or a brothel with all too humen acumen. They have little use for separateness, for a uniqueness that might be considered pure or holy.

On the other hand, writers like Peretti have a hammer lock on the more subtle qualities. They get separateness. The understand uniqueness. Their strange gods/heroes may lack in a physical reality, but they are endowed with a special sort of clarity - a defined, clean isolation that should be unique to mythic figures.

Then, you've got the rare few who are able to bring forth all four effects into one good character. When a writer can do this, he (or she, although, I've got to admit, all you humans look the same to me) has achieved a glorious thing.

Shelley does it with Frankenstein's monster. C.S. Lewis accomplishes it several times, as does O'Connor (Lewis' best example can be found in the Unman Weston in Perelandra, and I'll just take a stab at O'Connor's iconic Misfit). Lee does it in Demon: A Memoir with Lucian and his ilk. Rice strangely achieves this in Interview with A Vampire and then "over-realizes" Lestat in the Vampire Lestat. Stoker does it with Count Dracula in the abstract.

Somehow, all four cylinders have to hit in rhythm. St. Paul does it here with ease. I haven't done it yet.

Can the Damned Be Redeemed?

Tosca Lee points out a really fascinating complexity about the state of demonic salvation.

She quotes Augustine quoting the philosopher Plotinus* (and I quote Lee quoting them!):

"…that the very fact of man’s corporal mortality is due to the compassion of God, who would not have us kept for ever in the misery of this life. The wickedness of demons was not judged worthy of this compassion, and in the misery of their condition, with a soul subject to passions, they have not been granted the mortal body, which man had received, but an eternal body."

Plotinus is right. By association, so are St. Augustine and St. Tosca.

"Damned" isn't soft terminology. I think it is easier for those who have not faced a direct confrontation with evil to believe that it can be redeemed or reformed. It doesn't work like that. You don't purify Tianenman Square by celebrating the Olympics there: you only spoil the torch.

Keep in mind that demons, before demonhood, had been granted the one thing we really wish we had: immortal bodies. How many times have we thought that everything would be just fine if we only didn't have to deal with death in all its forms (breakdowns, breakups, breakouts, brokenness).

Well, so did the angels. But immortality turned out to be insufficient for a huge number of them.

So the demons are blessed with the one thing we covet: eternal existence. But it still isn't enough for them. They were built for community with God, but they used their immortality as a wedge against their own design!

Theoretically, physically, God could redeem a demon, but His just and righteous -- and loving -- character dictates that he not redeem a demon.

I know you humans think you are smarter than He is. You think you are more loving than He is. You, given the omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence of the Lord, would devise a delightful means by which the whisperers of Auschwitz might find redemption, even if they don't want the redemption you offer.

Instead of casting them to outer darkness, you'd be better than our father Abraham, who would not even send a dead man to witness to five lost brothers. Instead of separating yourself from the absence of good, you people, in your infinite justice, would marry yourselves to it.

Oh, wait, you** already have.

Why do we have such compassion for the devil? Isn't a demon a sort of tarbaby for misplaced sympathy?

Sincerely,


St. Grumpy



*Plotinus' efforts, by the way, should rightly be seen as an attempt to clarify Plato. His philosophical influence stretched from neopagans of the day to Christians. It is also worth noting that his philosophy is as overtly hostile to gnosticism at the intellectual level as Christianity is at the spiritual.

**(we)

Review-A-Palooza: Demon: A Memoir Discussions Start to Hit Stride

Nicole Petrino-Salter is suffering from another bout of the God virus, as propagated by Demon: A Memoir.

Fancy that.

This is one of the first reviews that I've come along that really starts to dig into the book's greater implications.* I have a feeling that the conversation started by Tosca Lee won't end until Judgment Day. If then.

This is going to be fun.**

*I mean, I've seen a few who have spoken of the book as "witnessing tool" to non-believers, but that falls short of the mark if that is the end of the discussion. The book is, first and foremost, a great story in an otherworldly format. It is a real story that makes demands on the reader--not to take a prescription or a "message" from it-- but demands that actually cause the reader to be somebody better, deeper, more loving, more engaged.***

**I mean, you know, I'm talking about a restrictive, semi-joyless fun, just in case you were getting worried. Only Diet Chocolate Cherry Fun for you!

***I know, I know. I've been playing it close to the vest about my opinion of Demon: A Memoir, so here's my big reveal: I kind of liked it. Shh.

Jesus loves Demon (A Memoir, that is)

I've noticed a few reviews of my new favorite book on the planet: Demon: A Memoir.

The Review Hutch: Review of Demon: A Memoir

Dave enjoys Demon: A Memoir

Ginny Smith has a few thoughts as well.

Detecting a pattern, I'm sure. I hope you don't think its all just a bunch of hype. Would I lie* to you?

Okay, so maybe these do not constitute a direct endorsement from our friend and master. But, wherever two or more are gathered in his name...and I've gathered three! (four if you count all present semi-humans.)

*I mean, not counting that bit about me doing time for counterfeiting currency, or accidentally derailing transcontinental train shipments with a penny, or eating a rock or that bit about the cannibalism.

Havah: The Story of Eve

That's the title of the book, which I believe I've failed to mention for about three posts now. It isn't because my battle-lobotomized brainpulp has turned my memory to slosh, though. As you know, time isn't running out: it is running backwards. That's why the title, which comes first, now comes last!*

Havah: The Story of Eve, by Tosca Lee, is slated to come out in October of this year.

*Yes, I should receive credit for manipulating quantum physics and eschatology to my own, excuse-riddled ends. Just be glad I didn't throw in a Mandlebrot Set, because I could have. I really could have.

Tosca Lee Chernobyls Her Underwood

Just to finish off the invasion of words that Tosca Lee launched on her editors (previous posts here and here):

Her first run-through hit 160,000+. Considering the target was 100,000, I'm thinking that she met her mark. Then punched it in the face. Then kicked it when it was down and rolled it off a cliff.

Poor mark.

Sorry for all the violence, but I've never been one to tack toward the Isle of Appropriate Social Conduct.*

In case you didn't know.

* This also applies to my disgusting disregard for the victims of bureaucratic failure and improper oversight in the old Soviet Union from whom I carelessly appropriated for my title. Also, I lied about Lee and her Underwood. At least, I think I lied. I don't actually know how she first writes her words, but the two things I'm pretty sure she doesn't use are a clay tablet or a manual typewriter. But a clay tablet would be cool. Especially if that's how she wrote Demon: A Memoir.

Author Lee Departs Crazytown for Insanity City

Post below, updated: Tosca Lee just passed 144,000.

A significant number, considering its importance in the Book of the Revelation.

"Then I looked, and behold, on Mount Zion stood the Lamb, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father's name written on their foreheads."

Although not as significant as each living member of the remnant, every word is significant, even those that do not make it to final edit. Editing a full third of the draft away is going to be an amazing feat of scrutiny.

Wow. This is like watching Skywalker* in the trench, TIE fighters on his tail, the meter counting down, and an exhaust port no bigger than wamprat for a target. I don't know how it is all going to end, but I guarantee it will be spectacular.

The one thing that Red 5 can't be aware of in the thick of this, and what most of the audience will have forgotten by now, is that Han Solo may be rough, but he's no derelict, and he doesn't stand by when there is action in the game.

*What follows are a series of obscure references to a little-known art film from the late 70s.

Tosca Lee Kicks Asterisks

Ugh, in her latest post, world renowned-author Tosca Lee notes that she's hit 131,000 words in the new novel she's working on. This is a big number, especially to me, who tends to think of long-form fiction as anything that doesn't fit in one of my stupid asterisked* comments.

I've mentioned it before, but none of my major publications have ever cracked the 100-word limit. In one of them, I lost the plot twice before the 50-word mark. So, yeah, to have cranked through, oh, 1,310 times as many words and to complain about not being quite finished is a little like Edmund Hilary summiting Everest and complaining that it doesn't go up any more.

By the way, if you haven't read Lee's Demon: A Memoir yet, you probably should. But only if you don't want me uprooting you like the witless stripling that you are and picking my crooked teeth with the remains.

*My asterisk comments are brief, is what that means.