I'm delighted to announce that my latest novel, BISHOP MYRIEL: IN HIS OWN WORDS, is now available for presale on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B084FVJQBX?pf_rd_p=ab873d20-a0ca-439b-ac45-cd78f07a84d8&pf_rd_r=SBW6388S744NB5YSMGJ5

The paperback edition will follow shortly after the ebook's release on February 25.

All Les Miserables and Victor Hugo fans will enjoy this novelized version of the man who changed Jean Valjean's whole life.

I claim the title, ghostwriter, with

great humility and esteem for

Bishop Myriel, Victor Hugo’s catalyst

character in Les Miserables. Basing this novel on an already

well-known and beloved fictional protagonist posed a

challenge, to say the least. As did "channeling" the bishop's spirit, so I could speak in his voice.

*    *    *

In the dramatic stage adaptation of Les Miserables, with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, French lyrics by Jean-Marc Natel and in English by Herbert Kretzmer, Bishop Myriel appears early in Act I for barely a few minutes. During that brief encounter with mendicant Jean Valjean, the bishop bestows upon the wild-looking parolee the inherited Myriel family treasures (silver dinnerware and candlesticks). Before they part ways on stage, the bishop spontaneously “commissions” Valjean with a new calling in life:

“Jean Valjean, my brother: you belong no longer to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I am buying for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God!”

With that surprising and confusing revelation, the bishop withdraws from the stage not to be seen again until Valjean’s deathbed scene when he appears to the dying man as in a vision.

How different the scene in Hugo’s original!

The first lines of that sprawling epic present Bishop Myriel front and center as a major player in the story:

In 1815, M. Charles Francois Myriel was Bishop of D____. He was a man of seventy-five and had occupied the bishopric of D____ since 1806.

Fantine, Book the First, Chapter I, Myriel

In the commission scene, the bishop’s final words to Valjean are:

“Remember this my brother, you will use this precious silver to become an honest man. By the witness of the martyrs, by the Passion and the Blood, God has raised you out of darkness; I have saved your soul for God.”

Soon after being released, however, Valjean robs Petit Gervais, a lone child on a deserted road. Suddenly, he recalls the bishop’s mandate (in this abbreviated form):

“. . . you have promised me to become an honest man. I am purchasing your soul; I withdraw it from the spirit of perversity and give it to God Almighty.”

Myriel and Valjean never meet again, at least not until Jean Valjean lies on his deathbed. Hugo describes that scene as follows:

The portress had come up and was looking through the half-open door. The physician motioned her away, but he could not prevent that good, zealous woman from crying to the dying man before she went”

“Do you want a priest?”

“I have one,” answered Jean Valjean.

And, with his finger, he seemed to designate a point above his head, where, you would have said, he saw someone.

It is probable that the Bishop was indeed a witness of his death-agony.

Over the century-and-a half of the original novel’s existence, a number of abridged versions of the 1,200-plus pages have appeared. Some publishers made an editorial decision to abridge the text. In doing so, they generally omit the statement that Bishop Myriel was in the process of writing a book on the topic of Christian duty. I am grateful for Charles E. Wilbour’s  unabridged English translation (1862, the very year of the novel’s first publication. Wilbour includes Hugo’s detailed, Scripture-based outline of the bishop’s opus-to-be. Random House’s Modern Library Edition of Wilbour’s translation (2000) filled that important gap.

We are told by Victor Hugo himself that the work remained unfinished. The bishop’s detailed outline captured my imagination and launched me on a twenty-year inner quest that has resulted, finally, in this historical novel. Probing Les Miserables’ expansive spirit became my passion. I can only hope that I serve the good bishop well by attempting to channel his spirit. And so, I dare to offer what I call a first draft manuscript of Bishop Myriel’s book. In doing so, I have done my best to preserve Duty’s outline as created by the original author. 

Senior But Not Retired: Editor Carol Smallwood Interview

Carol Smallwood, co-editor of the anthology, Writing After Retirement: Tips from Successful Retired Writers, recently interviewed me about my career as a senior--but not retired--writer.

Les Miz and Me

Bishop Myriel's
unconditional love
changes Jean
Valjean's life.

I don't usually share anything publicly about a work in progress. Like most writers,  my computer is loaded with partially completed projects--some abandoned altogether, gathering digital dust. As a rule, it's best to keep my current projects to myself. Considering the imminent film release of the musical, Les Miserables, I'm going to risk an exception. 

First, some background. My all-time favorite novel is Victor Hugo's masterpiece. For me, it's more than a story. It ranks next to the Bible as a literary sign and sacrament of God's love for our frail, often broken humanity. No surprise, then, that my most beloved fictional characters are Bishop Charles Francois Myriel and Jean Valjean (in that order). 

Over a 25-year novel writing career, I have "fathered" dozens of fictional children. Now, this is where I risk sounding a little bit weird. I have this mystical theory, you see. Its hypothesis is this: every character of fiction created in the mind of an author or original storyteller has a real life in an alternate or parallel universe. I base this on a common phenomenon that fiction writers experience upon completion of their stories. In my case, having lived with my characters for a year--or more--and knowing them as intimately as I do, letting go and moving on sets in motion a grieving process. It's similar to the emotions generated by the loss of a loved one.

My parallel universe theory plays out in There's More (working title), my current work-in-progress. The story begins with Hugo's Bishop Myriel being called from his existence in another realm to serve as companion and guide to Afterlife. A young priest has just died in a freak accident--one that turns out to be a murder. This is not the bishop's first experience in this capacity on Earth, but he considers it the most remarkable. 

Like the bishop in my story, this is not the first time Hugo's characters have populated my own writing. In The Wisdom of Les Miserables: Lessons From the Heart of Jean Valjean, I reflected on my personal life experience in light of the spiritual/theological themes embedded in the novel. Also, one of my most-read blog posts on this site is "A Model for 21st c. Catholic Bishops," in which I urge the hierarchy of my church to become servant leaders after the manner of the Christlike Myriel.  

I can't wait to see the latest earthly incarnations of Bishop Myriel (Colm Wilkinson) and Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman). I wish Director Tom Hooper (The King's Speech) success with Les Miz's most recent rendition. And, in that faraway universe, where our fictional characters live, may the real Myriel and Valjean also delight in it.

(c) 2013 by Alfred J. Garrotto
All rights reserved