Madman: A Novel
by Tracy L. Groot
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Book Summary Information
Author: Tracy L. GrootEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-01
ISBN: 0802463622
Number of pages: 316
Publisher: Moody Publishers
Book Reviews of Madman: A Novel
Book Review: madness, salvation...
Summary: 5 Stars
...and the Geresene demoniac of the gospels of Mark and Luke.
I'd known the story of the madman tormented by Legion. I never once took it so personally or considered looking at it from the man's point of view. That is, until I read a work of fiction that, while I was suspending disbelief and getting into the narrative, worked on my memories (from the Gospels and my little picture book of Bible stories that I loved as a child).
At the end, I closed the book and had to take a minute to compose myself. Groot writes a powerful and introspective novel that makes you back up and take a look at the story you think you know from the Gospels (i.e.: the madman living alone in a cave, saved when Jesus casts the demons into a herd of pigs who then take a header off a cliff and into the ocean). While I knew the Biblical account, I never considered that the madman had family or friends who loved and cared for him before, during, and after his possession. I never wondered what the man might have done for a living before having his mind torn to pieces. Groot makes him a whole person rather than just a cog in the wheel of a parable or a background character in the life of Jesus. In Groot's story he is a person, with a life, who suffers horribly and endures until one comes who is able to release him from his possession.
This is the type of Biblical fiction that I love. It does not diminish the Biblical account, but it humanizes the people, asks the reader to apply common sense and context to what is being read, and makes the situations more applicable to modern life.
Just to be useful, there is another recent work of fiction that provides some human insight into a Biblical event. Not the End of the World by Geraldine McCaughrean tells the story of the Deluge from the point of view of Noah's daughter, Timna. A few examples of that common sense I mentioned earlier: All things being equal, other people knew how to build boats and were much better sailors than Noah and his family...it takes a while to drown, so Noah and his sons probably had to listen to the cries of mothers and fathers as they tread water, banging on the side of the ark, and begging them to, at the very least, take the children on board...and so on.
These works of fiction do not diminish the Biblical accounts, but enhance them and ask us to bring context to what we are reading.
Summary of Madman: A Novel
If there is a way into madness, logic says there is a way out. Logic says. Tallis, a philosopher?s servant, is sent to a Greek academy in Palestine only to discover that it has silently, ominously, disappeared. No one will tell him what happened, but he learns what has become of four of its scholars. One was murdered. One committed suicide. One worships in the temple of Dionysus. And one ? one is a madman. From the author of The Brother?s Keeper comes a tale of mystery, horror, and hope in the midst of unimaginable darkness, the story behind the Geresene demoniac of the gospels of Mark and Luke.Fiction Books
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