It is ironic, is it not, how everything seems so poetic in death, yet we rarely see the poetry in life?

I couldn’t think of a more truer statement than this, spoken by a God-like king on the first page of Cheryl Anne Gardner’s book, The Splendor of Antiquity.  True, we’d expect our Gods to say such profound things and the narrator of  this book does not disappoint with such expectations. After all, he has been dead for centuries and our lead female, an archaeologists named Joliette Deneauve, is about to dig him up.

Gardner has magnificently given the book a theme about faith. The reader will know that right from the start.  But this is also a book about passion, and there are two kinds here.  First the passion, both physical and emotional, felt between two people.  This is evident between Joliette and her fellow archaeologist named Olivier Botton. But then there’s the feeling of passion that one has when they find themselves so truly captivated by some thing that also steals their heart away.  For many, this second passion is the love and faith one feels for God, or should I say a God. And so Joliette finds herself torn between the two.  She struggles against her connection with Olivier and is overcome with passion for the dead king she discovers deep in the Siberian mountains.

Tittering on the brink of fantasy, Gardner presented herself with quite a challenge when writing this book. Olivier and Joliette are both human so conversation between the two would obviously come quite naturally.  However, remember this book is narrated by the dead king. Though he speaks to the reader, he cannot verbally speak to Joliette.  But the one sided conversations Joliette has with his skull will send shivers up your spine.  In Chapter 5, Joliette uses technology to sculpt a model of what the king might have looked like, a beautiful metaphor for God breathing life into each of us, but held at bay by the fact Joliette uses technology, science, to recreate the features of the king:

“In the simplest and most poetic of terms, she believed, devoutly in her heart, that a thing, once created, should never die. “Doesn’t matter what that thing is: flesh, stone, or bone,” she said. “Even the idea that sparked the courage to create in the first place has merit beyond the moment and should never fade from the world. Neither the memory nor the emotion behind it should ever be cast away and forgotten as if it had never existed, as if it had meant nothing.” Everything means something in a metaphysical sense, even the trivial things. At least they did to Joliette. Restoring to me my face, my name, and my honor was the least trivial of all.

I loved the fact that this book was also not too philosophical despite the boundaries of both religion and science that are explored. Yes, Joliette is consumed with her work as a scientist and shows great passion for her work, but her obsession with the king and with finding out who he is also consumes her.  Just as churchgoers long to be closer to God but denounce the scientific explanations behind who we are or how we got here, there’s always that boundary between stories.  Joliette never sways in either direction. We are a culture of secrets and history.  Gardner reminds us that societies long before us bury their secrets, their sadness, and their past, only to have later societies dig them up all over again:

Over the course of a lifetime, one might never be able to calculate how many tears could be shed on account of death.

When Olivier reveals that their research has not brought them any closer to the real identity of the king, Joliette vows to return to the dig site in an attempt to learn more, growing even more obsessed with the unnamed king.  The king tells us he’s already been haunting her dreams, but Joliette returning to his grave is the chance he needs to finally reveal himself to her. Joliette’s fate is oddly revealed to the reader early on in Chapter 2:

As the passing of the world slips down through fractures in the muck-covered gravel of time, everything is absorbed into everything else. Every bit of matter, whether it be rock, stone, or bone becomes a part of antiquity. Mist, magic, or trembling lips, everything transcends in an elemental eclipse

Everything.

Every atom, every slight or obtuse particle of dust, and every swirling cloud of detritus will eventually posses the memory of everything else, etched into its core.

And so it’s not about having to choose between what we believe and what we know is real. Joliette simply accepts her fate and succumbs to it, but not before her and the king share a secret that Joliette chooses to keep to herself. Despite research, despite science, despite the opportunity to be known for something great, sometimes it is just about faith and that which we hold so dear inside ourselves.

This is the second book by Cheryl that I’ve read.  I love the nontraditional 8×5 size she uses, which is offered by CreateSpace.  It’s perfect for a novella and gives the book a nice pocketbook feel to it that I really admire. For authors publishing work under 200 pages, you should definitely give this size some consideration. And while you are at it, you should invest in a copy of Cheryl’s book simply as a guideline to following for formatting.  The front matter and body of text are flawless. Great story!  Great physical book!  Indie authors should take note because this is a perfect example to follow.

Today, I have remained neutral throughout most of my life when it comes to the topic of religion, but I grew up a Southern Baptist and carried a small hardcover Bible to Sunday School.  It had a cartoon picture on the cover of Jesus walking through a rocky valley while carrying a baby lamb.  Inside, there were a ton of other colorful illustrations that kept my young mind entertained when there was no chewing gum left in my mother’s purse or I’d grown tired of drawing stick figures of my own on the back of the church bulletin.

There was Adam and Eve in a pretty garden with a snake in an apple tree, and fig leaves winding out across the middle of the picture to strategically cover any private places. There was a glorious picture of a giant ark with hundreds of animals coming out of it; a dove and a rainbow in the sky.  An old man clung to a mountain top with two tablets in his hand beneath a dark sky full of lightening.  A mother and father in dirty clothes knelt next to a manger in a barn.  Cows and sheep lay in the background.  Colorful kings carrying shiny gifts were looking through the gate.  And in the makeshift crib lay an angelic baby on a bed of golden hay.  Angels filled the sky overhead and shepherds could be seen guiding their flocks in the distance.

The next photo was of that mother holding her child.  She wore a white and blue hood and gown; the cherub-like baby was wrapped in crisp white fabric.  Books later in the Bible, there was another picture of that same mother, a bit aged, standing in the front of a crowd along a street.  A single tear made its way down her cheek. Her mature son was being paraded down the street, half naked.  His back had been whipped and was bleeding. A crown of thorns was wrapped tightly around his head.

These are images that any of us, religious or not, have seen somewhere before.  They’re used throughout religious history and teachings, and you could say Mary and Jesus are iconic figures in the photo albums of our minds.  But what about Joseph?  Who is he really, besides the tall thin character standing behind Mary in your mother’s Christmas nativity set?  What do you know about him?  Thanks to Stephen Bruce’s novel, The Father, I have a pretty good picture of him now.

First, I have to commend the author on his beautiful and captivating book cover.  He has not attempted to set any certain preconceived images in the reader’s mind about what this book is about.  There are no people on the cover engaging in any event to even give you a hint.  Rather than a typical blue cloudy sky, he has painted it red…the same color of blood or also a typical color associated with love, which also happens to be in the title.  (It has often been suggested to POD authors to use some red on your book cover to grab attention.)

You are looking down a cobblestone road with a flash of light at the end, possibly indicating reward or hope at the end of a long rough journey (the light at the end of the tunnel?).  The buildings along the road and the scroll-like font of the title might indicate a story of Biblical nature, but my point is that this is a well thought out cover which I believe would grab a book browser’s attention for all the right reasons.

And that’s just the cover.

Mr. Bruce writes in a third person narrative, which I often prefer.  It goes back to the days of enjoying having someone else telling you a story.  We also assume our narrator knows all, and for a writer it is much easier to present multiple points of view using a third person voice overhead that sees and knows all.  Writing technicalities like this aside, right from page one the author puts you on that dirty stone road which you see on the cover.  You are standing next to Joseph and watching with him as Jesus is led through the streets carrying a cross.

Such was his rage. It was an anger that he could not express, an impotent fury which had suggested itself to him before but which was now close to consuming him. In his mind’s eye he saw a black tidal wave, of immense size, racing towards him, destroying everything in its path and blocking out all light as it rushed to embrace him. Dreadful as this image was he felt a willingness to allow the wave to wash over him, to obliterate him completely, sparing him the agony of watching his beloved son suffer.

I immediately recalled images from Mel Gibson’s Passion movie from a few years ago; you will as well if you read this book and you’ve seen that movie.  The pain and suffering of Jesus is vivid and heart wrenching, despite the violence and rage which other movies and the news have blatantly shown us everyday, desensitizing our eyes and minds to horrible things of that nature.

But I believe that is why Stephen Bruce has chosen to tell this well-known story from the point of view of someone else who may or may not have been there…Joseph, the “foster” father of Christ, a man that most of us only know as a modest carpenter.  In the Bible, Joseph never even speaks in the Gospels. Christian tradition, though vague on the time and place of his death, represents Mary as a widow during the adult ministry of Jesus.

That is why the characters are a truly important part of this novel.  Stephen Bruce breathes such life and emotion into them, causing this novel to read like a biography which the author might have penned as the very events on the pages were taking place.  From the crucifixion to Joseph pleading for the body of his son, you too will feel the agonizing emotion and love of this man.

As a reader, I tend to stray from books like these which present a story that I may personally only know bits and pieces of, but it’s a traditional story that “everyone” knows some part of which often makes it look very predictable in our eyes and not worth reading.  Bruce’s novel is in no way such a story, despite being about the death of Jesus.  It is much more than that.    More so, it is about the love Joseph had for his son and the inner turmoil any father would go through should he have to watch a dear loved one suffer.

Clean, in-depth writing, vivid detail that captures and holds your attention, and strong powerful characters that you will want to visit with again and again, The Father is a book I will be adding permanently to my bookshelf with intentions of sharing it with friends and loved ones of my own.  I applaud Stephen Bruce on a magnificent piece of work, and if there are any traditional publishers out there reading this now…this book is worthy of your attention!