Fascinating Authors

About Saint Nick:

Out of a desire to honor Christmas, I wrote Saint Nick. The storyline evolved from a dream where a giant twister sweeps me from a vacant church into a borderland for lost souls. Other story elements come from the current demonization of oil and bitterness toward the military and Christianity. Finally, when I learned that a famous Native American had become a devout Catholic during the second half of his life, the book quickly took shape.

In 1904, on the feast of Saint Nicholas, Black Elk was baptized into the Catholic Church. A holy man of the Oglala Sioux, Nicholas Black Elk spent his remaining years as a catechist and missionary, primarily on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. In Saint Nick he appears to a miserable bankruptcy lawyer named Paul, shortly before Christmas. In the first chapter he mocks Paul’s dabbling in other religions: “You’ll never be a shaman—you’re a schmoe.” The old Indian warns Paul that his soul has deserted him and is “afraid to come home.” He tells of a distant shore where redemption is possible.

Paul has spent his years in pursuit of trendy spiritual fixes to life’s problems. Besides seeking out spiritual treasures from other cultures, he’s frequently read Black Elk Speaks, fascinated with the holy man’s vision-quest to save his people. Paul’s fondness for exotic spiritualism becomes a summons for his own salvation.

At Black Elk’s urging, Paul takes the journey on Christmas Eve.

Black Elk is the returning good Saint, the gift-giver, our Native American angel who makes an attempt to rescue Paul from spiritual bankruptcy. Black Elk also has helpers: Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse.

On horseback, Sitting Bull and Paul travel to an oil rig. Sitting Bull is arrogant, proud and honorable: “I killed my first buffalo at the age of ten … I rubbed out Custer. I did what the times called for. But in death, I walk out of time … now I see any time with the eyes of a visitor. I see protection for the weak and the strong … I look deep into the water, deep into the earth, and I do not see the poison you speak of.” For warriors like Sitting Bull and Black Elk, it is traitorous to despise the soldier’s protection and the earth’s gifts.

Next, Crazy Horse enters the adventure. Untalkative, the famous Indian scares Paul with his inexplicable behavior. Even to his own people Crazy Horse was considered strange. Yet it’s through the legendary warrior that Paul is led back in time to a junior high dance; once again seeing the girl of his dreams. He sees what he’s had and lost, contrasting his current, nonexistent love-life and a feeble holiday call to his on-again-off-again girlfriend at the story’s beginning.

In Saint Nick each spirit guide informs Paul that his hatred of society’s gifts marks him a traitor.

But Paul’s greatest betrayal is to his son, who knows that his dad wanted his mom to have an abortion. This revelation ends their relationship, stranding Paul in a wilderness of false journeys.

Paul’s chance for redemption starts with his frequent reading of Black Elk Speaks. The book acts as a prayer and the prayer is answered with a journey, giving him a chance to heal his soul and gain his son’s love.