It is with this sense of loyalty and remembrance that I picked up Anno Domina, the novel he, according to the publication dates, was working on during or just before Commuters. Here’s the description I found on Goodreads:
The year is 2030, and the most important decision of Damien Driver’s brief tenure as governor of Arizona is to decide whether or not he should stay the execution of a heretical cult leader. Damien’s conservative constituency – and just about everyone else with an opinion – wants the treasonous woman dead. However, the party’s single largest contributor, the Bishop of Phoenix, as well as the prison chaplain plead with the governor for clemency: the bishop citing the Church’s stance against capital punishment; the chaplain believing she is the second coming of Christ. Already convinced that the woman is wholly innocent, Damien searches frantically for a legal loophole to justify a stay of execution only to discover that there are forces at work trying to make the decision for him.
To be honest, I struggled with it. It’s a thriller, and thrillers aren’t my cup of tea.
As Lilith and the security officer squeezed their way past the burly mountain range of men, Luke a Felipe watched one of the protesters break from the tiny throng. He was tall and thick, like the Mexicans he passed between, but dressed all in white. His hair was long, curly, dark, and it bounced with every exaggerated step he took. He held a sign that read “The Child of God Will Rise Again.” He followed in step behind Lilith and the man who was presumably giving her a ride.
I forget exactly who these characters are, but this is one of the few passages I marked and dog-eared as I read the novel.
Then, as if he knew Felipe and Luke were watching him, the man in white turned and whispered mischievously. “Hold this for me, please,” and handed Felipe his protest sign. Felipe recognized him as the man from the previous night, the one who stopped to chat in front of Father Joe’s parish.
The man in white hurried to catch up with the corrections officer walking beside Lilith and tapped him on the shoulder. Before the officer had fully turned around to see who had tapped him, the man in white had already landed his stony fist squarely on the corrections officer’s chiseled jaw. The man fell to the ground hard, his head making an unpleasant thud as it hit the cement.
Lilith turned around and stared at the man in white. “What the fuck did you do that for?”
“Intimidation,” the man is white said. “You failed and now your time has come.”
And with that, the man in white pounced on Lilith, knocking her to the ground. He knelt on his right knee and pummeled her with his right fist. In the midday sun, his clenched hands appeared as large and as solid as a small boulder attached to his arms, rising and falling again and again and making horrifying crunching sounds. Felipe heard several of the protesters gasp, but all of them were helpless to help, trapped behind the line of massive men.
“Oh, dear Lord have mercy,” Felipe said, appalled by the viciousness of the attack.
“Not today,” Luke added, his eyes glued to the action.
Her face instantly ballooned and turned a deeper reddish-purple as each massive strike was delivered. Flesh was ripped from her bones. The man in white continued his attack until, after landing a dozen or so blows, he suddenly stopped and stood up. Felipe stared at Lilith’s body, unmarred, as it lay on the ground, her arms and legs spread only slightly. In stark contrast to her untouched body, every feature of her face, darkened slightly by the shadow cast by the man in white standing over her, was crushed, unrecognizable, as if a very small child had tried to create a sculpture of a woman’s face with a thick pile of crimson mud.
The man in white, immaculate and unstained, stood and looked back at Felipe. “You know what?” he said. “Maybe you should keep that sign.” He smiled and winked and walked away from the body that had once been Lilith Samuel.
Felipe dropped the sign, ran to a planted tree in the courtyard, bent over and wretched.
It’s the tone. Always, it seems, with thrillers, it’s the inconsistent and ambiguous tone that leaves me confused. Tell me, is the above passage supposed to be funny? Or horrific? Or both? What am I supposed to feel as I read these stylized words? Whispered mischievously. Stony fist. Chiseled jaw. Unpleasant thud. Crunching sounds. Massive men. Very small child. Crimson mud. Why are these modifiers there? They seem to glorify the action, but I’m not supposed to think this is glorious, am I? I should be retching, like Felipe, right? Why can’t I tell?
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This post first appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can follow him on Twitter @ericlanke or contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.
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