a novel by Debra Murphy. Book One of The Ashland Grail Cycle
Jun 9th, 2006 by Debra Murphy
Matthew Lickona has published a very nice review of The Mystery of Things on Godspy.
Matthew is the author of Swimming with Scapulars, a sort of youthful (and frequently humorous) autobiography of an orthodox Catholic boy coming of age (at Thomas Aquinas College) in a very secular world. I recommend it particularly for older teenage boys and young men feeling a bit of cognitive dissonance about living a Catholic life in postmodern America.
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The myth of St. George and the Dragon comes to new and provocative life in this mystery-thriller set in Milwaukee.
This is the story of James Ireton, a gifted young Shakespeare scholar haunted by a tragic past and recurring nightmares of a Knight, a Lady and a vicious Dragon. James thinks they’re just dreams, but when two people close to him fall victim in a seemingly motive-less series of brutal murders, James discovers there may be a very real Dragon preying in the shadows of his life. Worse, if he doesn’t find a bit of St. George in himself, the woman he loves may prove the Dragon’s ultimate victim.
Hi Debra,
I just read your post on the Self-Publishing List about controversial blogging, and must say I agree with you. My blog has been complimented as a “haven of peace” in the blog world. I really see no purpose in using words as weapons to hack at anyone we don’t like so people will pay attention to us. I could get attention by attacking people on the street, too, but I don’t.
All this to say, good thoughts :).
Rachel
Interesting to me that Lickona’s review of “Mystery of Things” starts with his complaints, and moves to his experience of it as a fine story that’s well-told.
Protocol is usually to do the overall assessment and then add caveats. Isn’t it?
Anyway, Lickona does have a casual and quippy style and makes some good points.
It seems to me that he misses the medium-message aspect of “Mystery of Things”: fuller, more detailed and sometimes elevated language echoing the best of English literature–even in dialogue–as a “medium” for the “message” of the perennial validity of truth-goodness-beauty. “Mystery of Things” is Caravaggio; most of what we get in contemporary fare is Georg Grosz.