David Angsten says that in many ways, the spark that ignited the ideas in his latest book, Night Of The Furies, occurred decades ago in a grade school named after a martyred saint."Eight years steeped in that Catholic mythology--the saints, the Devil, heaven, hell, the life and death of Jesus--all those stories and the fabulous artwork helped shape my imagination," Angsten said. "The ancient Greeks had a very different, but equally rich mythology."
And Greece is where Furies, released in October by Thomas Dunne Books, unfolds. A sequel to his debut novel, Dark Gold, the book follows Jack and Dan Duran as they sift through ancient rituals. But as they encounter a cult of Dionysus' worshipers, the Bacchae, they quickly learn that the old gods can incite modern peril--including murder.
Angsten said the fiction touches on vital real-world ideas.
"My novel is a kind of fugue on freedom. Political freedom. Individual freedom. Sexual freedom. The boundaries and dangers and anxieties of freedom. And why certain cultures are afraid of it."
These themes, he notes, have been present throughout recorded history. Every society has a different take on how to embrace--or not--these questions and fears. One example is the ritual of the orgy, he tells us.
"The Romans were very pragmatic. They took everything they could use from the Greeks, including their religion. What was interesting to me in writing Furies was the difference in their orgies. For the Greek Dionysian cults, the maenad orgia was a rite of transcendence, an obliteration of self, a blending of bodies and minds. Roman orgies were power plays. A conscious probing of the erotic. The self remained intact, the mind always observing. Romans stayed bound to the physical world; Greek maenads merged in madness with the Lord of Liberation, freeing themselves from matter."Wine, of course, plays a big role in the obliteration of the self. Angsten said that when it comes to his favorite, he is pragmatic too.
"Two-Buck Chuck. The Cab. Absolutely. And ... it's actually a decent wine. Inconsistent, but so what? So are a lot of the table wines you get in the south of France."
Angsten also writes for the screen, and says that although he enjoys both books and scripts, prose allows him more freedom to chase ideas. "'Little treasures' surface, driving the story and enriching the process itself," he said.
"I always do a full outline with a screenplay. Map it out as much as I can. But when I write a novel, there's much more room for exploration and discovery. I love digging deep into a moment or an idea. ... In a novel, your 'camera' can go absolutely anywhere, explore anything, everything. There's no budget ceiling, and the only technical limitation is your talent as a writer."
In the end, Angsten tells us that sense of adventure is what connects him to his writing and his characters.
"I think you have to identify with each character or you'll fail to make them human. I suppose Jack, the narrator, is a version of me in my 20s--only maybe he's more skeptical than I was, a little less naive. He also seems to have a higher tolerance for alcohol and a greater capacity for physical courage. Jack is my youthful Odysseus."
For more about Angsten and Night Of The Furies, visit www.davidangsten.com.
Contributing editor Gerry Doyle
is the author of numerous short stories published in the United States,
abroad and on the Internet. His first novel, From the Depths, was
released in November 2007 by McBooks Press. He has worked as an editor
and a reporter for the Chicago Tribune since 2001. He's also OK at
ping-pong and has had cocktails on three continents. He doesn't put
much stock in astrology but just in case: He's a Leo.
