IN THE WAKE OF GOLGOTHA
by Daniel Grace
Two of history’s greatest villains seek redemption through reincarnation in Grace’s debut novel.
Two thousand years ago, two men—a traitor and a judge—committed history’s worst crime, damning themselves to an eternity of rebirth and remorse. In his current manifestation, Judas Iscariot is Jude Issachar, a Manhattan social worker with a penchant for autoerotic asphyxiation. Jude divides his time between serving breakfast to the addicts and unhoused at St. Xavier’s and leading literature courses at the local community college, though he has trouble thinking of himself as a teacher. “How could he,” Jude wonders, “a man fraught with so many fatal flaws, possibly have something to offer? Twenty centuries of self-loathing would do that to a man. There had only been one Teacher.” His associate, Pontius Pilate, is now Peter Pheiffer, an attorney for a white-shoe criminal defense firm known for representing the worst of the worst and charging them a pretty penny to do so. Jude is aware that he was once Judas, even if he can’t clearly recall the innumerable lives he’s lived in between. Peter, on the other hand, has no memory of his previous incarnations, though he is destined—as he is in every life—to eventually discover his past crimes. Jude sees an opportunity to do better in this current life by assisting his buoyant friend Leonard Abraham, a recovering heroin addict desperate to stay sober. Meanwhile, the hand of fate delivers a particularly unsavory client to Peter’s docket. The crimes of MRI technician and serial killer Balthazar Bedrossian have a coincidental resonance: He is accused of murdering three men via crucifixion. Tragic circumstances eventually bring Jude and Peter together, though not before each has had his life derailed by flashes of their ancient offenses. A new passion play is about to unfold, this one with the characters in slightly unfamiliar roles—can Jude and Peter change the outcome to free themselves from their cyclical purgatory, or are some sins simply too great to be forgiven?
The novel is neither as brooding nor as religious as the premise suggests. Instead, Grace uses these infamous characters as a means of playfully questioning notions of infamy, evil, and the tendency to become mired in the past. He finds clever ways to confront his characters with their former identities, as here, when Jude pauses to look at El Greco’s Purification of the Temple during a visit to the Frick: “He was there. They both were…Jude gazed at the twisted, contorted figures all appearing to be leaning heavily on one leg with torso twisting away from the chaos, away from Him, teasing a sensation of panic and fragility in the Temple.” The work achieves moments of high pageantry—including flashbacks to biblical times—but the author spends many pages simply following Jude, Peter, and others through the mundanity of their lives. While this approach sometimes creates pacing issues, it also makes for a surprisingly unpredictable narrative. Readers will have fun identifying the echoes of New Testament figures and events as they appear, but the novel manages to be more than just a rehash.A philosophical fantasy about the recurring traps in which we find ourselves.