When Faith Turns Deadly

By Joshua Holland, AlterNet. Posted December 5, 2008.

We have had a Republican-led government for six years. It is a party whose dominant popular base is religious, desperately concerned with sexual issues. The Islamic government in Iran has a base of popular support. It is not an imposed foreign or socially alien dictatorship. The core of that popular support are the true believers. The ones who want women "decent" -- hair and body covered. Who want capital punishment for adultery.

There is also an intersection between religion and business. Religious organizations and religious figures are key players in the entire economy. Every business person I met in Iran said, "You can't do business without a mullah as a partner." Should you try, and you are successful, one of them will show up and announce that you have a partner or you're out of business.

It is more extreme than here. But that is only because they can. If Dr. [James] Dobson or Tony Perkins could make every business tithe and could then take that money and use it to get a stake in lots of other businesses, they would. You betcha.

Yes. It is a model for a Christian Republic of America. Slightly different costumes, kebabs instead of barbecue, but very similar (and no homosexuals! Remember, it's a choice, they can be retrained through prayer or severe chastisement).

JH: I write about politics and the economy, but allow me an annoying literary question. I'm a fan of the classic old "hard-boiled" detective novel -- [Dashiell] Hammett, [Raymond] Chandler, those guys. I was reminded of that genre with this book. Was that something that was intentional, or is that a product of natural osmosis.

LB: It was half and half.

With more deliberate commercial planning, I would have structured it as a thriller. The paradigm for a thriller is "the race between the train and the Model T." The hero is in the Model T. The villain on the train with the girl and the money (or the deed to the ranch). The villain is racing to finalize his villainy, the hero to stop him and rescue the girl. They crisscross, with the villain setting traps and ambushes to kill the hero. That's what the fiction market likes now.

Somehow, I started out with Carl and stayed with him. In the end, I think it makes a more interesting and less-genre book. There are two stories. One is his investigation, detective style, into a crime. Did his client do it. If not, who did? The other is the story of Job. There are two other characters. The dead atheist professor. A megachurch preacher, who saved Carl from a life of drugs, drinking, dissipation and disasters.

Those two would see themselves in a battle for souls. Normally, we expect the dead to be at a disadvantage. But the atheist has left a book behind. If there is one absolute, indisputable truth we can learn from the Bible, it's that even if you're dead, you can exert a lot of influence if you leave a book behind.

Their battle -- like that of God and Satan over Job -- comes down to a single soul. In this case, it's Carl, the detective and narrator of the book. So the second story is his spiritual journey. And, like Job, he is stripped of everything along the way. So at the end, he has nothing but himself and his own values as he stares into the void.

And there's lots of funny stuff along the way.

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Joshua Holland is an AlterNet staff writer.

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