| There are thin places in the universe—places where the
visible and the invisible meet. Your heart takes you there. Ready or not. |
| A forgotten grave amid some unpromising ruins in a shabby
suburb of Athens is a such a place for post-doc archaeologist Christopher
Mavros. Young and ambitious, Christopher wants to shine: “I want every
eye to look upon me, every knee to bend. I want lips to part and say, he
is a god among us.” Margaret Durant, a wealthy amateur, invites him
to sign up as second in command on an unorthodox commercial dig to unearth
the bones of Oedipus. “Oedipus?” he sneers. “Why not the
lost ark? The holy grail? The temple of doom?” But such a discovery,
she persuades him, is the sort of thing that can make a young archaeologist
a legend in his own time. “I’m such a whore for that kind of
talk,” he reflects. Things go awry from the start. The aged Jacob
Rosen, the director of the dig and Christopher’s nemesis, dies mysteriously,
but not before entrusting to Christopher his diary—ostensibly containing
the location of the bones—and extracting from Christopher a deathbed
promise not to disclose the location to anyone. There’s a legend that
the bones possess a mystical power, which they can retain only if their
resting place is kept secret. The promise eats at Christopher. But the promise
isn’t the only obstacle to his ambition. Instead of promoting Christopher
after Rosen’s death, Margaret takes over as project director. “Me?”
Christopher observes, “I get appointed chief eunuch.” But he’s
not above sabotaging the dig to extract revenge and further his own ends. |
| Still, there’s something in the universe that cares
enough about Christopher not to let his arrogance and ambition stand in
the way. Something that knows him better than himself. Something that, like
Christopher, isn’t above sabotaging the dig to further its own ends. |
| The dig becomes a nightmare for Christopher—an unsettling,
kaleidoscopic world where the visible and the invisible intermingle and
confounding improbabilities confront him at every turn. Rosen returns from
the dead, ostensibly to remind him of his promise, but more subtly to rub
salt in every psychic wound with his merciless nudjing. More irritating
than Rosen is Margaret’s nephew Andy, a rather dopey but endearing
young man hopelessly smitten with Christopher, who embarks on a quest to
rescue Christopher’s heart as if it were a damsel in distress and
he its knight in shining armor. Most irritating of all to Christopher is
the camaraderie that develops between Rosen and Andy, and Andy’s fascination
with the inscrutable Hassidic folktales Rosen uses to confound Christopher.
Events turn from irritating to distressing. Christopher’s father,
who died decades ago in Vietnam, wanders through Christopher’s dreams
and then into his waking reality. He tells Christopher of the discovery
he made at the moment of his death: “And this poem fills your soul
like the voice of a seraph. ‘In what distant skies / Burnt the fire
of thine eyes? / On what wings dare he aspire / What the hand dare seize
the fire?’ The wings were mine. This was the hand. I was god once.
I made a son. A perfect son.” |
Christopher plunges ahead, ignoring, denying, or defying every
assault on his ambition. The universe retaliates. When everything seems
exactly as Christopher wants it—promoted at last to the director of
the dig, the bones nearly in his grasp—he slips through the subtle
membrane that separates this world from the other, finds himself in the
jungles of Vietnam, holding his dying father in his arms. “I knew
you’d come,” his father tells him. “You were god once,
Tiger. Burning bright.” Even that doesn’t persuade Christopher.
“Fuck you, Rosen,” he sobs, “fuck you, fuck you, fuck
you. If you think I’m going to fall for this sentimental
bullshit—” |
| It’s only when the bones Christopher held in his hand
mysteriously prove not to be what he thought, when everything he was certain
of proves to be illusory, that he admits, “I wasn’t right about
anything.” Andy, in his improbable way, alone understands: “What
happens isn’t what matters. It never makes sense. Cause whatever
happens makes sense—cause whatever happens happens to awaken us.”
“To what?” Margaret asks, exasperated. “Like, Margaret!”
Andy replies, “our splendor!” Alone, the empty grave at his
feet, Christopher realizes, “Something—a heart—your heart,
maybe—cries out, ‘You were god once.’ You were god once,
way back when you were just—nothing really.” As the lights fade,
the grave at Christopher’s feet begins to glow, growing more and more
luminous until it’s burning bright. |
| “Nothing if not ambitious...imaginatively evocative...an
impressive undertaking”—Bay Area Reporter |
