Bishop Myriel: In His Own Words -- Chapter 1, The Beauty of Goodness

I have been invited by Art Embraces Words to do a virtual reading this month (August) of a chapter from my latest (2020) novel, Bishop Myriel: In His Own Words. A firm date has not been set, but I will keep my readers informed through all my online social media sources.

Below, is that same first chapter. Enjoy this "sneak preview."

The Beauty of Goodness

 

[Myriel’s sister, Baptistine] had never been pretty; her whole life, which had been a succession of pious works, had produced upon her a kind of transparent whiteness, and in growing old she had acquired what may be called the beauty of goodness.

-- Fantine,  Book the First, Chapter I, M. Myriel: An Upright Man
 
 
     I am compelled by grace to explore a phenomenon I have observed with awe over the course of my lifetime. We Frenchmen are obsessed with beauty. The ancient Greeks were as appearance-consumed as upper class culture is today. Yet, they had the insight to peg the root of beauty to the word, ὥρα (in Koine, their common dialect). It meant “being one’s hour,” an interesting linkage to be sure. Beauty, then, knows “what time it is” or better perhaps “knowing who I am and who I am not.” My personal mandate as a human, then, is to know my true relationship with every person I encounter, at each stage of my journey and all the individual days that comprise that journey.

     I offer my dear sister Baptistine as a model of virtuous living. The call to recognize the “beauty of goodness,” however, applies not only to those having a lifelong resume of virtue. I have witnessed beauty’s goodness at life’s earliest stages. A toddler knows no other way of being than “in the moment,” even as the child grows and changes from week to week. A mother holding her child in her arms, searches beyond that moment for hints of the emerging man or woman in their maturity. I suspect that, within every parent there resides an unspoken awareness that they may not live to see their children fulfill their God-given destiny.

I have witnessed the beauty of goodness in teenage years, when it easily suffers displacement along the meandering path to maturity. I pay attention when I hear of any child, teenager, or young adult taken too soon by illness or tragedy. Also, when I hear of young soldiers sacrificing their precious lives on the desecrated altars of their elders’ self-serving wars. Parents and friends remark, “He was such a fine young man, always ready to assist someone,”  or “He was too good  for  this world.”  My heart cries,  “No!  The world  needs such young, idealistic men to stay alive, to make their mark upon our shattered society!” Some of us live our way into beauty. Others suffer their way to it. I think of patients I have known in our neighboring hospital whose clear eyes glow with inner light.
 
The beauty of goodness is like that hidden treasure Jesus spoke of in Matthew 13:44:
"The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure, hidden in a field. The one who finds it, buries it again; and so happy is he, that he goes and sells everything he has, in order to buy that field."
 
     When I discover goodness, be it for a moment or longer, I rejoice in its native beauty and bask in its bright light. So inspired, I take quill pen in hand. I lay no claim, on earth or before God, to poetic aptitude. At those times when I hear the call—I should say “challenge”—of the muse, I dare to express my heart in the fewest possible syllables. In doing so, I take comfort in knowing that no other eyes will see—and, God forbid, judge--my verse.

  

The Beauty of Goodness

i see goodness

in a mother’s smile

a helping hand

a loving heart

 

i find goodness

in a kind word

a silent shrine

sunrise aglow

 

chancing upon the

beauty of goodness

i catch my breath

stand in awe

Bishop Myriel: In His Own Words is available through your local bookstores or through Amazon and other online book sellers. Paperback list price: $17.99, ebook $3.99. 

Inspector Javert--Here's What a Chapter 1, First Draft of a Novel Looks Like

I've never done this before, but here goes. 
Dear Readers and Colleague Fiction Writers:
The following is my first draft of Chapter 1 of my novel in progress, Inspector Javert, looks like. My fellow writers know well that Chapter 1 of the published novel may bear little resemblance to what you are about to read. So, here goes:

 

Chapter the First

Javert’s Leap

 

“Do I stand at hell’s threshold?”

“Why might you think that?”

This unseen speaker’s voice had an unexpected air of calm . . . welcome.

“I committed the gravest of all sins. Taking my own life. Now, I must reconcile myself to accept the punishment I deserve.”

“And what might that sin be?”

“In the moment following my discovery of the one true God, whom I had never truly known . . . we wrestled, as Jacob once did with the angel. Through the whole of one night. Having wrestled with the author of an even higher law than the civil code, I could not go back to headquarters—to my life—as if nothing had changed. I might have even found myself one day in prison. What a fall that would be! To end my wretched life where it began. And from which unquestioning adherence to law had rescued me. At the same time, going forward, taking an unmapped step into the future. Impossible. This very night, my last on earth, unleashed within me the folly of my life, the wretched horror of facing another day on earth . . . . I sought  the coward’s way out. Taking my own life. I stand before the throne of my Divine Judge, sir, prepared for my final judgement and punishment.”

“And what do you expect that punishment to be?”

“My sin is between my Creator and me. Whoever you are, I owe you no further discourse.”

Javert’s unknown companion did not respond. “Am I alone again?” the self-condemned new arrival said. “No matter. I prefer no audience for my commission to the pit of flames.”

His companion spoke. “I am sent by God, your Creator and Father, to assure you, my son, that you are safe.”

“Perhaps you misunderstood, so I repeat. I am resigned to my fate.”

The calm, kindly voice repeated his assurance of safe harbor.

Javert rejected deceit. “Come, Divine Judge! I am a man of action. Cause and effect. Why do you delay? Only once in my life of honorable service did I hesitate. Only once violated my sworn duty as  defender of law and right order. See what it cost me! Life. Liberty. Reward for a job well done. Perhaps promotion to the higher positions which I deserved. Until the last evil night. If you delay my punishment, I accept that as punishment begun.”

“What is the last thing you remember?” his companion said.

“Who are you to ask such a question?” Javert had no history of responding to an unknown questioner. He demanded confessions. He carried out punishment proclaimed by a judge, be it jail time or the most feared sentence of all—years spent in the horrors of the galleys. Even death by guillotine paled by comparison to a lifetime in chains.

“Permit me introduce myself.”

The deceitful response came with a tone of respectful humility.

“I am Charles Francois Myriel, late Bishop of the Diocese of Digne. Your fellow countryman. The Divine One whom you recently encountered assigned me to welcome you to Afterlife.”

“After . . . life? Then, I . . . I still live?”

“Quite. But in a form previously unknown to you.”

“A bishop? .  . . . Of the Holy Catholic Church? Surely you mock me. I reject your disguise, Satan! You have met your match. I spent my entire life unmasking deceivers like you.”

“Your caution is reasonable, I assure you. Nonetheless, such was my position in life. Where you go now there is no rank. All are equal.”

“Then, you too are an unrepentant sinner?” Javert said. “We arrive together at the gates of hell to await and share the fire that never consumes.”

“That is what you expect?”

“I do and am resigned to it. What other fate may the likes of us deserve? A failed bishop of the Church and a fallen guardian of the sacred legal codes of France. How we paragons of righteousness have betrayed our vocations!”

“On the contrary, Javert.” Myriel stifled a chuckle. “I assure you we stand not at the edge of the fiery pit. Far from it, it pleases me to report. Exceedingly.”

“Before you confuse me further, I need to ask how you know me, sir? Have we met before?”

“In earth-life?”

“Call it what you will. I am . . . was . . . known for never forgetting a face. I etched indelibly into memory the image of every man, woman, and child who came within my broad purview. Though a man of your own faith, I do not recall your passing my way or ever hearing your name.”

“Correct. We never met, in France or anywhere during our lifetimes. We do, however, share a common acquaintance.”

“Oh? And that might be?”

 Javert disliked word games—or any games. When he demanded a confession, he settled for nothing but raw, unembellished truth. Cheats and liars, every wrongdoer crossing his path spent time in prison, if the feared guillotine did not claim priority.

“The man known to each of us is Jean Valjean, who still walks in Earth time. Surely you recall that name . . . and face, Javert. I met him only once. You two, I believe had a lengthy history ”

Hearing his lifelong nemesis’s name jolted Javert. A flood of memories gushed back in rapid sequence. Their force rendered Javert speechless. Reclaiming his composure, he hissed, “Indeed. I . . . know . . . the man.” After a nightmare-filled pause, he continued, “I despise the very sound of that name. At the same time—and I cannot believe what I am about to say—I cherish it. Never in my life have such contradictory emotions flooded me at the same time, regarding the same person.”

“I must confess,” the bishop admitted, “I have struggled against similar clashes of feelings myself.”

He recalled his years as a young husband exiled in Rome. Sharing life with his new bride. Their mutual, passionate love and the hope of bringing a child into the world. Not long after her death, he felt the call, of all things, to renewal of his Catholic faith and later—and most surprising—to priesthood.

At first, he had shunned the image of himself as celibate priest, seeing in it a betrayal of his lifelong devotion to his life-partner, too soon snatched from him. She took to her grave their most-prized possession. Hope. A desire for children. How he fought the call to ministry! The stronger his effort to deflect God’s call, the more convinced he became that he had already decided to surrender to the insistent invitation. A decision he never regretted. Not that he ceased loving his spouse, whom he lifted up daily in consecration along with the Sacred Bread of Eucharist. He said nothing of this to the newly arrived spirit, called on earth Inspector Javert.

“About this Jean Valjean.” With great difficulty he asked, “Does he live still?”

“I assure you, Javert, he lives.”

Moving on to my next book . . . Inspector Javert

Javert, from Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo, published in 1862.

Having just launched Bishop Myriel: In His Own Words, what's a writer and avid Les Miserables junky to do? Follow BM with a book about the most dangerous and mysterious of all Victor Hugo's antiheroes, Inspector Javert (if he ever had a given first name, it isn't mentioned in the novel)? 

It's as if he came from the womb a dedicated policeman. His single purpose in life?  To catch and jail every lawbreaker in his path, until the just and punishing God he believed in and whose cause he served (in his own misguided way) carried him to his eternal reward. "Job well done," my son.

In fact, this young, innocent child quickly decided he had only two possible life-choices in front of him . . . follow his fortunetelling mother and his father, both of whom were serving prison sentences at the time of Javert's birth . . . or to become the most impeccable and zealous lawman ever created. And go to his grave with a clean slate to be welcomed by a choir of angels singing, "Well done good and faithful servant, enter into the reward your flawless service has merited."

Since 1862, Javert has become known the world over by readers of Les Miserables and audiences packing movie theaters and stage venues. We know him as a tragic foil to the the man of principle and charity, Jean Valjean (who assumes a variety of identities in his desire to cover his tragic past as the paroled prisoner 24601). These two antagonists  first met during Valjean's prison years. As chance--and Victor Hugo--would have it, they cross paths again . . . twice, at least, during Valjean's life in Western France and finally in Paris.

The question for me was . . . why do I want to enter the dark mind and soul of this man who dedicated his life to bringing lawbreakers to justice with a vengeance unsurpassed in world literature? To be honest, I fought it for months. After writing about the wonderful bishop who turned Valjean's life around and set him on a course of compassionate living and works of charity, I balked. Throughout the writing of Bishop Myriel, I reveled in probing the soul and good works of that great man. Then, why Javert?

Yes, why Javert?

(to be continued)

Don't miss Bishop Myriel: In His Own Words 

"An stunning achievement!" -- Judith Ingram, Forgiving Day by Day

Bishop Myriel--A Professional Review

Spiritual writer, Judith Ingram (Forgiving Day by Day), has just published a review of my new novel, Bishop Myriel: In His Own Words.  I am pleased to share it with you here:

REVIEW by Judith Ingram

A Stunning Achievement!

Alfred J. Garrotto has composed a novel that ushers Victor Hugo’s fictional character, Bishop Myriel, out from the shadows of the Les Misérables stage play to the front-and-center position to which Hugo’s famous novel assigns him. Hugo hints in his novel that the bishop was writing a volume on Christian duty but left it unfinished. Garrotto steps in to cleverly elaborate on the bishop’s detailed Scriptural outline—thoughtfully provided by Hugo himself—and composes a work of theological reflections as if penned in the good bishop’s own hand.

Calling himself the ghostwriter in this tri-level authorship he shares with Myriel and Hugo, Garrotto quickly immerses his readers in the voice and heart of Bishop Myriel through a series of autobiographical vignettes. The charming formality of the bishop’s narrative and pitch-perfect style befitting an early nineteenth-century writer render the ghostwriter invisible and magically transport the reader to the very feet of this humble priest, wise beyond his years and devoted to Christian service.

After his introductory vignettes, the bishop presents his “completed” work, Duty. While the stories charm and endear the bishop to his readers, Duty stuns with its brilliant, incisive treatment of fundamental truths of Scripture and their application. The bishop laments his own shortcomings, yet his love for Christ and passion for giving himself to others in service outweigh his flaws. The reader is left to wonder whose soul is truly revealed by these deep wells of compassion, understanding, and purity of heart—is it Myriel’s, Hugo’s, or the ghostwriter’s? The bishop might answer that all such beauty must ultimately spring from the Christ Himself, to whom all three authors give first honor.

*    *    *

Bishop Myriel is now available for presale in e-book format. The paperback edition is due out in early to mid March of this year.
 

I hope all you Les Miz fans out there will enjoy this most unusual book. Unusual how? It is a fictional story whose protagonist is a fictional character created by the master fiction writer  Victor Hugo.

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=bishop+myriel%3A+in+his+own+words&i=stripbooks&ref=nb_sb_noss

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1003393

Barnes and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/bishop-myriel-alfred-j-garrotto/1136384449?ean=2940163463299

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. 

Bishop Myriel--in his own words . . . new novel to arrive in early 2020

Early in 2020, I’ll be releasing my 8th novel, “Bishop Myriel: In His Own Words.”Les Mis fans will enjoy this inspiring story. 

Current tentative cover

Writing in the voice of Victor Hugo’s beloved fictional character is requiring me to climb inside the body and soul of this great yet very humble man. 

Writing in the bishop’s own voice is a personally rewarding challenge. It requires me to “channel” Hugo’s bishop, Les Mis’s catalyst character. 

The bishop’s generosity and personal challenge (“to become an honest man”) sent the former convict,  John Valjean, on his way to becoming the courageous, exemplary man who served to the poor and suffering (les miserables). 

Stay Tuned.

Why "Les Miserables" Will Always Be--TODAY

It's no mystery why Victor Hugo's Les Miserables will forever be timely to every human society everywhere. It's all there in Hugo's own preface to the first edition . . . .

Preface to Les Miserables

So long as there shall exist, by reason of law and customs, a social condemnation, which, in the face of civilization, artificially creates hells on earth, and complicates a destiny that is divine, with human frailty; so long as the three problems of the age—the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation, and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night—are not solved; as long as, in certain regions, social asphyxia shall be possible; in other words, and form a yet more extended point of view, so long as ignorance and misery remain on earth, books like this cannot be useless.

Victor Hugo

Les Miserables

Hauteville House, Isle of Guernsey

1862

The Arts. . . both gift and a call to service

What's not to love about the cello? A "voice" to die for. Sexy design. Polished finish that brings each wooden fiber to brilliant life. 

This instrument first thrust itself upon my consciousness in the PBS documentary, "Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound," that chronicles Baez's life. The segment that stood out for me was her 1993 visit to the destroyed and terrorized city of Sarajevo, Bosnia. She described her heart-rending encounter with Sarajevo Opera cellist Vedran Smajlovic. 

"Unable to stop the madness that had ripped apart the former Yugoslavia, Smajlovic honored the memory of his friends and defied their killers by doing the only thing he was good at. Placing his chair in the middle of the street, he took out cello and bow—musician and instrument melding into a single defiant force. Eyes closed to the surrounding destruction, he rendered the mournful Adagio in G minor by Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni." 

 

Be it a musician, actor, painter, or writer, anyone else endowed with creative gifts, Smajlovic's offering to his fellow Sarajevans represents an artist's supreme achievement: to become one with the work and with the audience. I imagine him getting up every morning, donning his tuxedo, as if he were going to play with his disbanded orchestra, and carrying chair and cello out onto the dangerous street to play Albinoni's soulful Adagio in G minor. 

I imagine Michelangelo on the scaffolds of the Sistine Chapel, Antoni Gaudi living the last years of his life in the dusty construction site of Barcelona's (still-unfinished) Sagrada Familia Basilica.

I think of Victor Hugo in 1861-1862, melding himself with his idealized man, Jean Valjean.

The great gift of artists is that they do not hoard their transcendent experience, but allow us differently skilled humans an opportunity to transport ourselves in spirit to a higher realm of contemplative unity, be it ever so brief. Wise beyond human comprehension are those artists who are fully conscious of their lofty and sacred calling, to inspire our world and make the world a better place for everyone.

- - - - - - - - -

I invite you to read my book, The Soul of Art, available at all online booksellers in both paperback and ebook formats.

My Art and Soul retreats/workshops explore the sacred source of artistic gifts and the mission of those so blessed to share the fruit of their talents with others for the betterment of our Sarajevo-like world.

Next retreat/workshop:

Saturday, June 24, 2017
9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.
San Damiano Retreat House
Danville, California
Cost: $55

For information about this event or to book future events, contact alfredjgarrotto@gmail.com

(c) 2017 by Alfred J. Garrotto
All rights reserved

Reprint of a Judith Marshall Interview

Judith Marshall

Author and Interviewer Judith Marshall: Alfred J. Garrotto is an example of a prolific writer who has experienced both traditional and self-publishing. His genres are as varied as his publishing experiences.

Can't Buy Wisdom--at any price

Note: With the Thanksgiving/Christmas Season upon us, everything will be for sale and much of that will be "on sale." One of the most important of our human needs is wisdom, which alone can bring us the joy and happiness we all say we want in life. The trouble is, we can't buy it at any price. But what is wisdom and how do we get it? The following is an excerpt from my book, The Wisdom of Les Miserables: Lessons From the Heart of Jean Valjean.

From various modern renditions of  wisdom, I have borrowed pieces and put them together in one statement that makes sense to me:

Wisdom is the ability, developed through experience, internal reflection and insight, to discern what is true and to exercise good judgment.

Let me share what this statement means to me.

.  .  .  ability developed through experience

Becoming wise requires that I commit myself to observing the human story as lived by those who preceded me on this planet. Analyzing that great body of experience, with its successes and failures, virtues and vices, I need to compare it to my  own unfolding story—my life circumstances, perceived problems, and decision-making processes. 

Victor Hugo steeped himself in the history of the human condition. The fact that his political leanings shifted over his lifetime might be viewed—and would be in the contemporary American scene—as vacillation and expediency. I prefer to think of it as a reflection of his hope that someone along the political spectrum, at some point in his lifetime, might eventually “get it right.” He understood well the terrible consequences for society’s marginalized populations—les miserables—of failure to learn from the mistakes of the past.

.  .  .  internal reflection

Based on what humanity has learned over time and what my own personal history and instincts reveal to me, I am called upon, at a given moment in time, to make the best evaluation of what I must do in similar historical circumstances. In other words, I assess what has worked in the past to my benefit and to the greater good of all—and what hasn’t.

Although Hugo’s personal habits and behaviors seemed eccentric at times, the author of Les Miserables possessed a rich interior life that combined personal faith in God and a keen desire to promote “liberty and justice for all.”

.  .  .  and insight

Based on my observation of history and reflection on its meaning, I gain creative insight to develop a plan for living a satisfied and productive life and promoting the welfare of those around me and the world at large.

In Les Miserables, particularly in the life of protagonist Jean Valjean, Victor Hugo drew a map for human living that, if followed, would create a more just, rational, and beautiful world than most human beings live in today.

The evil portrayed in the persons of Inspector Javert and the Thenardiers (innkeepers), and in the legal and penal systems of the author’s time, is a model of inhuman behavior. Hugo plunges his readers into the hell of these characters and institutions and their modern global counterparts (corporate greed, genocide, inter- and intra-religious slaughter, domestic poverty, homelessness, displaced refugees, etc.). Where does the list end?

.  .  .  to discern what is true and to exercise good judgment.

Experience, reflection, insight: these are essential ingredients in the search for and discernment of elusive truth. To the extent that truth is available and achievable, it leads me to sound judgment .  .  .  to wisdom. 

(c) 2013 by Alfred J. Garrotto

Alfred J. Garrotto is the author of the novel 

The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story

saintoflorenville.com 

alfredjgarrotto.com

Evolution of a Novel: Conception to Birth

On the morning of July 26, 2010, something entirely new and quite unexpected happened to me. But first, let me backtrack. I had already written and published five novels, the most recent, Down a Narrow Alley (2005). Since then I've turned my attention mostly to nonfiction projects, the most satisfying of which was The Wisdom of Les Miserables: Lessons From the Heart of Jean Valjean (2008). This set of personal reflections on themes from Victor Hugo's classic novel have been well-received (with limited sales, my literary fate).

I had no intention of writing another novel. I thought I'd told all the stories I had in me, except for one half-finished, dead-in-the-water novel (and stories I make up for my grandson's entertainment). That's why I was surprised to wake up that July morning a year ago with a rough, but complete, narrative arc in my head, three main characters who would carry the story from beginning to end. I even had a working title,  A Train to Bruges. For the next six weeks, I continued to wake up with snippets of story and characterization, all of which I scribbled in the notebook I keep bedside, just in case (rarely) I  think of something brilliant during the night.*

As always, writing the first draft was exhilarating. My dreamed-up characters came to life. My villain was sufficiently evil. Best of all, I knew from Day 1 how the story would end. Studying the completed draft, I realized as many novelists do in that situation, that all I had in hand was a skeleton. My story needed flesh, which came only with grinding effort through subsequent drafts, along with  whatever research I needed to make the setting and characters seem real.

By June 18, 2011, I had arrived at Draft 8.2 and could finally add the # # # symbols to indicate "The End." Somewhere along the way, my working title had yielded to the current pre-pub title, The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story. Not that a novel is ever really finished as long as it's still in the author's hands. Once already, I've gone back in to add a few sentences to close an information gap that will keep the reader from wondering, "What about . . . ?" 

Now the real work begins: marketing a manuscript the book-reading world is not panting for and competing with the other million or so books being published this year. Like a lot of my colleagues of a "certain age," the question is, do I set out to find another agent (I've had three over the course of my career, but no one currently)? Or do I play my "Go Directly to Self- and E-pub" card? I'm pulled in both directions. Response to the ms. from my beta readers has been encouraging (overwhelming, in fact): "the most powerful novel I've ever read" . . . "the characters drew me as if I was attached to them by rope or chain" . . . "a powerful story" . . . "a gorgeous, romantic novel, beautiful, masterful." Heady stuff. I still haven't decided which way to go. I'll let you know which direction I take in future posts.

For a sample, click on the heading, "Work In Progress," above.

* The lined, hardcover notebook was a gift from writer-friend Elizabeth Koehler-Pentacoff in May 2010 for my role in helping with the California Writers Club, Mount Diablo Branch's Young Writers Contest. The notebook had rested on my night stand unused until that moment in July when I began filling its pages each morning with plot, character, and setting notes.

A Model for 21st c. Catholic Bishops

I matured as a Catholic in the years following the Second Vatican Council and listed among my formative heroes many American bishops and their peers in France, Belgium, Germany, Brazil, and, yes, even Italy. Towering above these forward-looking prelates was my all-time papal hero, Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli, Pope John XXIII.

Fast-forwarding to the present, I am challenged to identify more than a handful of bishops at home or abroad as models of Spirit-filled, gospel-driven leadership. I and others who share my Catholic history grieve the lacuna.

The recent Year of the Priest turned a spotlight in America on an aging and embattled clergy. These men, especially parish priests, are the remnant in the trenches of a no-longer flourishing clerical caste. With their breakfast they have had to swallow a bitter chronicle of abuse accusations and episcopal cover-ups, each one creeping higher up the ladder of ecclesiastical responsibility. One thing 21st century priests still have going for them is a model of exemplary ministry in St. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney (1786-1859), the Curé of Ars. One of their own, he served his parishioners with selfless love and inspiring dedication to the Body of Christ on earth.

It is hard to imagine who might serve as living models and heroes for today’s bishops. As a lay minister in a vibrant parish community, I pray and listen with aching hope for voices of gospel-inspired sanity and humanity among the American and world hierarchies. Instead, there is faith-deadening silence. In this wasteland, the only voices belong to the few whose righteous pronouncements serve as fodder for nightly sound bites and morning stomach turners. There have to be bishops and cardinals alive who cringe along with the rest of us. The few bishops I personally know who might be capable of sparking a Spirit-led revival cower in silence.

Let me propose an international, time-tested model for today’s bishops: Charles Francois Bienvenu Myriel, Bishop of Digne, France. Myriel is, of course, the fictional prelate who serves as the catalyst character of Victor Hugo’s classic and eminently Catholic novel, Les Miserables. What could a non-historical, backwater bishop possibly have to say to today’s real-world hierarchy? Plenty! 

Every bishop would do well to reflect on the true meaning of episcopal servanthood as found in the book’s opening one-hundred pages. Bishop Myriel provides a spiritual and moral compass for bishops whose ministry has devolved into fending off abuse victims (and their attorneys), while presiding over shrinking human and financial assets.

Hugo was no saint himself, but he knew what one should look like. We can speculate about the possibility of the author’s admiration of his contemporary and fellow countryman, the Curé of Ars. In his protagonist Jean Valjean, Hugo created the ideal Christian man—a lay saint. It might not be farfetched to call Valjean the principled, virtuous man that Hugo wished he could be. In Bishop Myriel, he brought to life the kind of post-Revolution bishop France needed, but rarely found. Portraying Myriel’s character and the quality of his ministry, the author revealed a deep understanding of true episcopal ministry and priestly spirituality.

Bishop Myriel is a man of prayer, whose holiness is rooted in Sacred Scripture. He takes seriously the call of St. Paul to be like Christ in every possible way: “As most beloved children of God, strive to imitate him. Follow the way of love, the example of Christ who loved you” (Ephesians 5:1-2). His hands-on ministerial style epitomizes the radical option for the poor. The pastoral “buck” stops at this bishop's door, as demonstrated when a priest of his diocese refuses to accompany a condemned man to his death. Myriel claims it as his solemn episcopal duty to spend the night in prayer with the poor man and accompany him along the dreaded final steps to the guillotine.

This is a wise bishop who sees possibilities that others do not in fallible human beings. On a night when no other citizen of Digne will offer shelter to specter-like parolee Jean Valjean, Myriel welcomes the stranger to his table and lodging (only to be robbed of heirloom silver by his ungrateful guest). 

Having no further contact with Valjean after forgiving the man’s misdeed, Myriel never learns that his generosity has produced a Damascus-like effect, setting in motion a lifetime of virtue and good works.

I studied philosophy and theology in the 1950s with many seminarians who went on to become bishops and cardinals, both in the United States and the Vatican. How I wish one of them were writing this post, instead of me! Today’s Catholics crave the kind of bishop that Victor Hugo presented as a model of the sacrament of Holy Orders. We, the lay baptized priests of the Church, pray that our Myriels-in-hiding will soon step forward with courage to catalyze the Spirit-led renewal destined to occur in this century.

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Alfred J. Garrotto is the author of the suspense novel,

The Saint of Florenville: A Love Story.