This five-part epic mystery commences with the “Book of Alona,” which presents poet, scholar Moody Santo in a love affair that leads to his mental unraveling. In “Psychosis,” Moody stalks the museums and monument grounds of Washington, DC, in a vain and futile attempt to find the woman of his dreams. Many years later, we find Moody in the “Book of Life” fully immersed in the deaf community in search of the murderer of his deaf brother. He finds true love with the deaf, Asian Norma, but in the “Book of Afterlife,” stigmatized, frustrated, angry, Moody departs this life for Other World. He meets Norma there, but when the two pursued by alien elders, attempt to escape back to life, only Moody makes it back. In “Fabula,” reunited with Moody, Norma gives birth to their child.
In quest of love and freedom, Moody comes to loss–loss of a lover, of his mental health, of a brother, and of life itself–in what might be described as a long struggle with death, from young manhood to middle age, but a death that brings resurrection and an afterlife of a kind of sexual slavery in Other World. Through the use of the beam, a superpower that in its nascent form makes Moody appear to be mad in this world but that, fully developed, enables him to escape back to this life from Other World, Moody returns to his true love, Norma Kim, to revenge, and to the birth of a son in the successful completion of a quest that is a triumph of right over wrong, of good over evil, and, finally, of life over death.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
