What The Miracle Sin Means To Me

To explain what The Miracle Sin means to me, I’d have to take on a trip down memory lane. It’s a bit of a rough neighborhood, so bear with me.

*slight spoilers*​

The story itself has existed in some form or another all the way back in high school. Though then it looked very different, the title was different and changed a number of times, and the characters and their names weren’t the same. Sort of like when you compare From the Adventures of Luke Starkiller to what eventually became A New Hope. I won’t spend too much time on that. What would become the final complete book as it exists today I started work on in 2009.

I can still remember writing the very first chapter sitting at a table in the bar I used to frequent called the Auburn Saloon. Subsequently, I found a writing exercise that I did for a course I was taking at that time in an old notebook which, though, again, much changed, detailed one of the core elements of the story—Mason and Rose. I’m afraid I can’t recall whether I meant to connect the two things, but connect they did eventually. And over the course of the next ten years, I would write what would one day be my first book.

Suffice it to say, much happened in that time. I worked a job that I hated, which exacerbated my already very present drinking problem, which in turn affected my relationship at the time, and so on. Like dominos all falling one after another. I spent a lot of that ten years alone; at first because I was recovering from my addiction as well as the fallout of the aforementioned relationship when it inevitably ended, and then by choice after romantic attempts failed very unceremoniously. Though there were certainly good things that happened in that time as well. I got sober, which was one of the hardest but most beneficial triumphs I can cite. After which my writing and other creative attempts were reborn anew, eventually resulting in having my first short story published. And last but not least, I miraculously found love again; with someone who, as it turned out, became an integral part of The Miracle Sin and my whole journey as a writer. Something I never in a million years could have predicted or even believed was possible to play out as it did. All of which had an effect on the book in some way or another.

But there was one thing that unwittingly became a focal point of the story that happened some years earlier. Something I’m choosing to talk about now fully for the first time.

In 2003 I was involved in a car accident. A serious one. One that wouldn’t have happened had I not be drinking. Regrettable to be sure and a mistake I’ve spent every day since paying for in one way or another. Fortunately, no one else was with me nor involved and the only fatality was the car itself. Due to the extreme circumstances—let’s just say I managed to turn a land vehicle into an airborne one—had I not somehow remembered to buckle my seatbelt, I’m quite sure that I wouldn’t be around to darken a doorway today. Fortunately, it didn’t go that way. I survived. A few bumps and bruises, but with life and limb in tact. Sometimes I can’t help but wonder…say there are parallel universes (if you don’t believe in the possibility, just go with me on this) it means there’s one where I didn’t walk away from it. And in doing so destroyed the lives of my friends, family, and loved ones. It crushes me to think about it. 

George Lucas has recounted an incident from his past wherein a serious accident at eighteen informed much of his life afterward. By a similar token, I too experienced the same thing—a serious accident, also at eighteen, which changed the trajectory of my life. Lucas’s accident was June 12 (1962), mine was June 8 (2003). Lucas’s seatbelt snapped, ejecting him from the car, which wound up saving his life, whereas my seatbelt staying in tact saved mine. I am by no means comparing myself to the Maker, I just find the similarities interesting and the effect such things can have on people. Ironically, while Lucas’s made him a film maker, my ambition was to be a film maker, and the accident in turn cut that short. Basically, I had applied to a film program and though I met the requirements, the acceptance quota for the semester had been met; but they put me on the wait list in case anyone dropped out. Well, sure enough, after the accident I got an acceptance in the mail…only I declined because now I owed thousands of dollars in damages and couldn’t afford tuition. The moral of the story: don’t drive drunk. Who knew?

That accident formed so much of the experience of Mason Cole, particularly in surviving the Great Quake of Jerusalem. And not only that but the resulting survivor’s guilt that followed, for both of us. The funny thing is, I didn’t even realize this at the time. It took someone who had read the book and knew of the incident pointing out the connection between the two events for me to see it. Funny how things can be so present, so right in front of our faces, woven into the very fabric of things and yet go unnoticed. Either way, it’s a chapter of my life that has affected it to this day.

Then, just little over a year later, a friend of mine was involved in a similar incident. One who wasn’t so lucky. Her name was Suzanne and she was among the people to whom I dedicated The Miracle Sin; along with my grandmother and a family friend, both whom Mason’s grandmother Rose was based. And of course, my beloved cat Pearl. I’ve spent much time since then asking myself questions I’ll never have answers to. Why her? Why not me? Is there a reason I’m supposed to be here and she’s not? If so, what is it? Even if I had such answers, it still wouldn’t be fair nor hurt any less. No one should die a teenager. I loved Suzanne. She was a friend to me when I had none, when I was new to town and knew almost nobody. She meant something special to me in a way I’ll never be able to fully explain. And it started with nothing other than that we just happened to be the only two kids in the same place at the same time. I often pass by where we met—a bus stop near our high school—and every time I do, I think of her. 

Much of her went into Julie, Mason’s best friend. 

Likewise, many of the characters of The Miracle Sin sprung from people I knew or had known. Grim is basically my dear friend Ken, with whom I’ve had many a lively philosophical discussion, who makes me wish I believed that someone up there was watching out for us. Diaz is in so many ways my friend Dan with whom I’ve shared many a joke that only the two of us would get and without whom I wouldn’t have had the courage to take the chances I did. Sarah is a number of beautifully unique, unabashedly perverted, insanely quirky women I’ve known, most notably my friends Mari, Chloe, and Katilin who come up with things that would make a locker room full of men blush. And so many more. I believe that as writers we don’t create characters, we meet them. That was certainly true of this story, and I had already met so many of them.

But there’s one character I didn’t exactly “meet” because I had always known him—Novak.
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Novak is every dark little thought I have. The coiled rattlesnake poised to strike behind every flower, waiting for you to reach out for it. A part I keep locked up far, far away so that his sickness doesn’t touch me, only visiting him when I absolutely need to. The one who just wants to watch the world burn and dance around the flames. A shadow even my shadow is afraid of. And goddamn it, he’s my favorite.

Why is that? Why are we so attracted to the bad guys? I think it has to do with the fact that villains so often speak truths we already know but don’t want to face. Truths that frightens us. They’re free, unencumbered by what anyone thinks or wants to hear. They’re dangerous, and danger is thrilling. I think it’s because somewhere deep down, we agree with them. They speak to the dark side in us that we all have and know is there, but are afraid to show.

There’s a scene in the first book involving Peter Gabriel’s “Sledgehammer” that I’ll never forget because in something of a phenomenal experience, I felt every little bit of writing that scene; from two very different points of view, simultaneously. I was broken and wounded beyond words while also brimming with wicked glee. I’ve never known anything like that before or since.

But then there’s a school of thought that says all characters are self portraits. Reflections of ourselves. I think there’s something to that. Though again, like so many things, I think it’s only part of the truth. Because we are all the sum of so many parts. So in many ways, it is both perfectly fitting and not the whole truth. Such is life.

And that’s really what “the miracle sin” truly is—life. A metaphor for the experience of living. Both a blessing and a curse. A privilege and a burden. Wonderful and terrible. Loving and cruel. Something for which we are supposed to be grateful, while at the same time frequently overwhelmed by and at the mercy of. In the end, The Miracle Sin is me exploring and trying to make sense of the many things that have happened in my life. From moving from place to place at a young age, never feeling secure, always the new kid, never fitting in or belonging anywhere, and then, if ever the fates be so kind as to give a sense of stability, having the rug pulled out from below again, and again, and again.

How I felt about it all, how it had made me who I am, for better or worse. Everything. In general, life is tough enough on its own, figuring out what we’re supposed to do with it, how to make it all work, how to be happy and content. But when you add a brush with death, a hail of curveballs, and the larger matter of every horrifying thing at large in the world to the mix, the calculus becomes even more complex.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say Mason Cole is me, at least not any more than Spider-Man is Stan Lee. But rather that, like Spider-Man, it’s through him that I have explored these many things and what I think about them. The questions to which I so constantly sought, and continue to seek answers. 

I was also writing about something I know many people feel in that we long for something more than what life gives us. A common theme in many a hero’s journey archetype and for a good reason. I think that to hope for something more in life is ok. It’s understandable. I’d say it’s even crucial. Because there’s some really hard things to deal with in the experience of living. There are soul-sucking jobs. Failed marriages. Hearts broken beyond repair. Feeling lost, afraid, and unimportant. Losing loved ones, something every single person can relate to I’m sure. We often don’t know what we’re supposed to do with it, what it means, or how to navigate it. We just have to figure it out as we go. It’s many victories and defeats, triumphs and tragedies, days spent smiling in the sun and screaming in the dark. For where else can horror truly be found if not real life?

But we persist. We press on and continue to fight the good fight. To quit truly is to fail. To accept defeat. Because somehow we believe that if we keep going, we’ll get there. From early childhood we’re told that if we work hard and strive for something we can achieve it. Sure there are peaks and valleys, that’s fine. But it’s presented to us in such a way—that whatever happens, it will all work out.

That’s what The Miracle Sin means to me. That’s what I can only hope it means for anyone else. And I know that it has. To me, that means everything.