Into the Fire

When I think of Madee, the main character, I hear the words Octavio Paz once wrote: "Through love we catch a glimpse, in this life, of the other life."

Madee, vulnerable, like love, understands in some deep, pre-verbal way that love goes against our experience and requires courage to maintain. Abused, profoundly so, she turns sex into love. Dissatisfied, she has a profound moment when she identifies with Tekakwitha, first possible native American saint. With this self-transcendence comes certainty: Her motivations no longer cause anxiety - she stops fearing a world she cannot grasp intellectually: She is organized around the simple principle God loves her, and now she can glimpse, in this life, that of the other.

Madee possesses the elemental features one would find in a Greek tragedy - she is willing to murder to save what she believes. A spiritual warrior of the old school, Madee's grace is her transformation of suffering into personal strength - a struggle that redefines the possible.

Madee's story is an old explanation of a new history - an unusual history to be sure. But, is there ever an explanation of history? Is Madee a saint or murderer? Do we really know what evil is, or good? Take our moment now. Are we not living through a moral catastrophe, a violent revelation of the hypocrisies behind the great American economy that for years redefined the possible?

Is Madee the only person in America to know there's no love in money? The real, as it turns out, is a quality of soul, and Madee has imagined a world equal to her heart.

Excerpt from Into the Fire

FATHER

What were you doing in the kitchen?

MADEE

Talking to God.

FATHER

And what did God tell you?

MADEE

To love myself.

FATHER

God is very clever: He tells people whatever they want to hear.

MADEE

Not me.

FATHER

What's different about you?

MADEE

He told me to do something I don't want to do. I'm very upset. This is hard.

FATHER

Yeah, that's the other thing about God - always making folks do things they don't want to do. I say forget it. No sense getting yourself all worked up: God's a fantasy, like Takeherwithyou - look at the economy. If there was a God, would we have inflation?

MADEE

Only people who understand suffering can talk to God.

FATHER

No one suffered more than your father. I lived through the depression. (Beat) Trust me: I took organic chemistry in embalming school: There’s no God. It's all made up. I once read in Reader's Digest that the mind is very prone to illusion, especially feeble ones. (Beat) What kind of voice does God have - soft and feminine or strong and masculine - I'm just curious, mind you.

She goes back to kitchen. Several seconds go as she knocks around - (sound of bottles clinking.) Finally she returns with a pot of soup.

MADEE

His voice? - it sounds like Jeremiah's.