Can you tell us about the process of writing this book?
This was the most difficult book I’ve ever written. This one took longer, went through more drafts, than anything I’ve written in the past.
Why was that?
I think the best books are the ones that really break into our consciousness and disturb the peace. The stories that insist on wrestling up things we’d rather keep hidden away and sedated. And I think the old cliché is true: if you want to evolve — as a writer or a human — there’s a need to engage your deepest, most persistent fears. At midlife, the need to do that becomes acute. Or, at least, it did for me.
The initial idea for the book came to me in a hotel room in Poitiers, France, at the ragged end of a day that had been spent trailing a friend from bistro to bistro as we talked nonstop about our mutual passion — the origins and the future of the American roman noir. That night, back in my hotel, I opened my notebook and scribbled down the bones for what I thought would be a quickly written story about Sweeney, a pharmacist from Cleveland, and Danny, his comatose, six-year-old son.
It sounds as if that initial notion evolved into something else.
I tend to develop an understanding of a book’s true concerns in the process of writing the story. But I’ve never previously experienced such a renegade. In retrospect, there were clearly some issues that my subconscious wanted, probably needed, to explore and chew on. I can recall an evolutionary moment when the book decided it wanted to be a different kind of beast, when its DNA changed. That transitional moment. The pivot. That instant when I made a small, seemingly minute move and the entire book shifted on its axis.
Can you tell us about that moment?
I was working on a simple scene: Sweeney, our protagonist, is sitting at his son’s bedside, reading from the boy’s favorite comic book. Throughout the story, I had planted this image here and there to show one of Sweeney’s last vestiges of his old, “normal” life, before the accident that caused his son’s coma. Sweeney continues to go through this motion, repeating the ritual he had shared with his boy pre-coma. Only this time, as I created the scene, I asked the questions, What is he reading? What is this comic book? Why was it Danny’s favorite? What’s the story and why did it resonate with the boy? Looking back, each of those questions was a land mine that detonated and exploded that short, simple noir tale I’d imagined at the start. The questions threw open a door into another realm. And because instinct is the novelist’s most valuable tool, I walked through that door.
Into the comic book world of Limbo?
Right. I ended up creating this substory about a wandering troupe of circus freaks. And as time went on, Sweeney’s story began to intertwine with the comic book story. There’s a lot of mirroring in The Resurrectionist between the main narrative and the freaks’ narrative. Between, we might say, real life and a fictional, dreamy realm. I can see now that I pulled Sweeney, literally, through the freaks’ story in order to effect a radical change in his consciousness. A change equivalent to the transformation that Dr. Peck would like to effect on Danny’s consciousness. And that I want to effect on the readers’ consciousness. And, finally, that the writing of the book seems to have made in my consciousness.
In what ways did writing The Resurrectionist change you?
It enlarged my perspective, I think. The process of making this book widened my sense of what identity is. Of how it evolves over time. Writing the novel gave me a bigger and clearer and more complex notion of what it means to make a family, to be a father. And, simultaneously, to be a writer. The change involves a larger, more mature perception of the tangled morality of writing itself — of making stories. Of what that process does to the writer. Of what it does to those around him. And of what it has the potential to do to, and for, the reader.
Questions for Discussion
1. In what ways does Sweeney’s story parallel the tale of the Goldfaden Carnival freaks?
2. Do you see any mirroring between characters in Sweeney’s story and those found in the Limbo story?
3. Which story line did you enjoy the most? Why? Which did you find the most meaningful? Why? Did you feel that the dual plotlines worked in conjunction with each another?
4. One interviewer felt there were no sane characters in this story. Do you agree? If not, who do you feel is sane?
5. There are several patriarchal figures in the story — Sweeney, Buzz, Bruno — and a strong matriarchal figure — Nadia Rey. What do you feel the novel has to say about the extent to which a parent or guardian will go to protect those in his or her care?
6. Who do you feel is the “resurrectionist” of the title?
7. In an interview, O’Connell has stated that the working title of the book was The Tombs. Can you recall episodes in the novel that would have evoked such a title? Do you prefer the book’s ultimate title, The Resurrectionist? Which title seems more appropriate to you and why?
8. Throughout the novel, various characters — Buzz (pages 213 and 296), the Sheep (page 237), and Nadia (page 285) — advise Sweeney to take the “leap.” What do you think they mean by this?
9. Dr. Peck’s closest relationship seems to be with his pet salamander, Rene. What do you think Rene’s purpose is in the story? What was the meaning of the poem that Peck recited to Rene in the cupola (page 148)?
10. Do you feel there is anything we can deduce about the personal history of the Abomination’s chemist, the Sheep?
11. What was the purpose of the elaborate ritual performance of Dr. Lazarus Cole’s at the Bedlam Brothers’ Roving Jubilee (page 99)?
12. What do you think triggered the violent tantrum that led to Danny’s accident?
13. Why do you think Nadia betrayed Buzz?
14. The epigraph of the book is an apology extended by Menlo, the creator of the Limbo narrative. To whom, and for what, do you feel Menlo is apologizing?
15. Do you think the ending of the book is hopeless or redemptive?
About the Author
JACK O’CONNELL is the author of four widely acclaimed novels. He lives with his wife and children in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank:
Nat Sobel and Judith Weber for their faith, support, and tireless counsel.
Chuck Adams for his enthusiasm, graciousness, and keen insight.
And, especially, my family — N, C, & J —
for perpetually resurrecting this scribbling freak.