Those are only three examples, but the point was made to me. At any given moment I could be interacting with a drug abuser, a sociopath, or a woman who’d been victimized. It astounded me, and it got me thinking about the people who deal in that underbelly of truth. Cops, therapists, priests.
I’d done some work with drug addicts in my own life, and had been that person people confided in. It changes your view of the world, of the people in it. For me, it was a change for the better. I saw that the majority of people struggle to do the right thing, and it increased my faith in humanity.
But, I thought: what happens to a person if it goes the other way? If the world starts to look like a bleak, evil, ugly place? What if that weight crushed you down, smothered you till you couldn’t breathe, filled your mind and your heart with despair?
That’s not how my villain turned out in the end, but it is how he first started to take form, and it was the villain who truly drove this particular book.
What kind of research did you have to conduct to write your book?
Any examination of truth and lies and redemption has to involve research into religion, philosophy, and ethics. I read the catechism of the Catholic church. I read Aquinas treatise on sins (mortal, venial, and otherwise). I read a translation of the Bhagavad Gita. I read various of Plato on logic, as logic is a search for truth.
I was trying to get a handle on the subject, not so much from a view of preaching it to readers (I don’t, trust me) but to try and understand how different individuals from different faiths — or no faith at all — view the subjects of ethics, morality, and truth. It was a fascinating journey.
What message are you trying to convey with this book?
I shy away from ‘messages’. I’m trying to entertain more than teach. Where issues of morality do come into play, I like to show all sides of the argument and to let readers come to their own conclusions.
There’s always a danger, when dealing with a subject like this, of getting preachy. I’m very comfortable with how I handled that in The Darker Side. Everybody gets equal shrift, good and evil alike. You can decide for yourself where you land.
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