Serpent Box - Beyond the Blurb – What’s it About?

So, I hear you wrote a book. What’s it about?

It’s about faith and God and the nature of belief. It’s about the nature of religion. It’s about a boy’s search for meaning within his religion. It’s about a boy in search of himself. It’s about coming of age and the transition to manhood, and fathers and sons and all the expectations and possibilities that go with that. Jacob Flint is told by the people he loves and trusts most that he was born with a gift. That he will grow up to do great things. But he doesn’t feel great. He doesn’t know what his gift is. So he does what only the bravest of people ever do. He leaves home in order to discover himself. He takes a journey. He faces trial by water and fire. He faces demons . He travels hundreds of miles on foot looking for his purpose. That’s what the book is about.

Wow…you wrote a novel? Can you tell me what it’s about?

There’s what the book is about and then there’s what the book is about. I’m done with the pat answers. We’ve come too far, you and I. We’re beyond the blurb. Don’t read any further if you’re not willing to close your eyes and jump. We’re past plot now. I’m letting you inside my head. You’re in with the therapists and the bartenders. You want to know what this book is about? Let’s do this. The boy. He’s a vehicle for a question. He’s a means to an end. The book is not about a boy, or a father and son, or a mother and daughter, or an old snake-hunting Indian, or a killer on the lam, or an old mid-wife who almost got shot in the Civil War. Those are the people who drive the question and here’s the question: Is there a God?

That’s the question. If you drink poison and suffer no effects, does that mean there’s a God? If you hear voices and heal the sick, does that mean there’s a God? Are the signs of faith an objective form of proof? That’s what the book is about. The question. Not the answer. The book does not attempt to answer the question for you, the reader. The book answers the question for me, the writer. I have the answer I was looking for. It’s right in front of me. I can see it. That’s what the book is about. Will you see it? I can make no guarantees. The book is a prism. It’s a cipher. What does that mean? Go back to the beginning of this section and read the quote by David Milch. Forget logic. Forget plot. Read the book. Drift through it. Bump into things. Collide. Mesh. Absorb. That’s what Serpent Box is about.

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