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The Genre Holder
Ex-Mas Song follows a man who survives a suicide attempt and wakes to face his failures, toxic attachment, fractured family life, and desperate need for recovery. At what point did you know this would become a Christmas story?
This project began as a dare from my then second wife to write a meta-fiction story like the film Adaptation, directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman (portrayed by Nicolas Cage in the movie), who writes about his problems scripting a non-fiction book into a metaphysical meta-mess of a comedy. My first thought was, “Well, what would I write about?” The answer became what was going on around me during Christmas. That became the starting point, but I spun my wheels on it until I came up with an idea for a structure: mimic A Christmas Carol. Since mental health, suicide ideation, addiction, and recovery play such a prominent role in my life’s history and experience, that became the idea, and A Christmas Carol became the genre holder, so to speak. “Cont;nue” became a subtheme for the book.
Faith is central to the novel, but the journey feels more like wrestling than preaching. Was that balance important to you?
My faith became the cornerstone that made my redemption possible. However, after it happens, it’s no longer about me, but about helping others. After I began to let God reshape my life, I began to serve others more. In order to serve, you have to talk to people and listen to their stories. The opportunity came to help lead a faith-based twelve-step program, which is about “walking the talk”, yielding oneself for service, or living out the Serenity Prayer. The Lord’s Prayer and the Serenity Prayer are my cornerstones to sobriety and sanity. There is no use in preaching those prayers. One must live them out for them to be of any use. Words are meaningless without being connected to action and the motives of the heart. When the right words match the right motives, miracles can happen!
The psychiatric ward is portrayed with both pain and humanity. How important was it to avoid stereotypes?
There were no stereotypes since most of it was based on first-hand experience; Grandpa’s Ghost, Boz, and the Merry Prankster were meta-add-ins from A Christmas Carol (Boz) structure. The closest literary experience that I have come across regarding a psychiatric ward would be One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey (the Merry Prankster), which I read after my own experience. I would like to add that some reviewers and readers have mixed reactions to Blair (which can translate to “battlefield”). Your review was very sympathetic. Hint: she represents the PAST, and as we all know, the Past Doesn’t Change: it’s a Dead End. The Serenity Prayer helps me to deal with the past and to focus on the here and now as I head toward the future.
What is the next book you are working on, and when will it be available?
I have two ongoing concerns. The older and longer project is a Mark Twain meets Jules Verne steam balloon adventure. A grandfather tinkerer makes a balloon for one last adventure, only to discover his granddaughter has stowed away, and shenanigans ensue. I am about three-fourths done with a draft, but since I revise as I go along, I doubt this will be finished and published in 2027.
The other ongoing project is my latest serial on Substack. Breaking Grin’s Law is a Gothic mystery, an alchemical comedy with an ensemble cast. Set in 1803 Heidelberg, Germany, two orphaned brothers, Sebastian and Karl Grin, work at a rare book store and attend University during the night, and solve bizarre occult mysteries at night. The serial comes out at the end of every month, covering the brothers’ adventure in the form of a principle that is experienced or discovered. I am halfway done with this project. The latest installment is June’s “Send in the Golem,” which is available here.
Once the serial is complete, it will form the next installment of the 13 short story collection, which I hope to publish sometime in 2027, so to speak. “Cont;nue” became a subtheme for the book.
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Ex-Mas Song
Ex-Mas Song follows Justin R., a man who survives a suicide attempt during a snowstorm and wakes into a Christmas-haunted reckoning with his failures, his toxic attachment to Blair, his fractured family life, and his need for recovery. The novel moves through a psychiatric ward, painful memory, spiritual confrontation, and Dickensian visitations until Christmas becomes less a holiday than an autopsy of the heart, and, finally, a chance to choose life.
I found the book emotionally raw in a way that feels deliberately unpolished at the edges. Justin’s voice is funny, bitter, wounded, and frequently self-lacerating; he jokes because the alternative is to collapse. The Christmas references pile up almost like snowdrifts, songs, sweets, movies, scripture, old family rituals, and that abundance gives the novel its strange pulse. It can be messy, but the mess has intention. The story understands that despair is rarely neat, and recovery often begins in the least ceremonial places: an ER curtain, a locked ward, a stale room, a remembered plate of fudge.
I liked the way the book refuses to make healing sentimental. Blair isn’t simply a villain, Justin isn’t simply a victim, and the psychiatric ward is not merely a setting for misery. Everyone is carrying some private corrosion. The Christian framework is explicit and central, but the strongest moments are not sermons; they are moments of recognition, when Justin sees how much of his life has been governed by appetite, fear, resentment, and bad bargains. The prose can swing from comic riff to apocalyptic vision in a single breath, and while that tonal volatility may not suit every reader, it gives the book a feverish, singular energy.
This book is best for readers of Christian fiction, inspirational fiction, and contemporary spiritual drama, especially those who appreciate stories about suicide recovery, addiction, toxic relationships, forgiveness, and faith-based transformation. Readers who love A Christmas Carol will recognize the structure immediately, though this feels closer in grit and confession to a recovery-room answer to Dickens than a cozy retelling. Ex-Mas Song is a bruised Christmas carol for anyone who has mistaken survival for defeat.
Pages: 486 | ASIN : B0CNJKZJ3F
