Chris Adrian, A Better Angel
Adrian, a divinity student and a practicing physician as well as a writer, uses these 9 stories to explore the various forms that sadness and suffering can take, and how they play a role in shaping our lives.
Adrian allows his imagination a long leash, and lets it probe into very dark places; This isn’t a book for anyone who is easily rattled or unnerved; Adrian’s cast of characters includes a homicidal 5th grader, a teenager who thinks he might be the Antichrist, a civil war re-enactor who sneaks in live ammunition, and a spirit who whiles her post-suicide time away in hospital corridors spying on the staff as she waits for her organs to be harvested so she can be off to “a place without loneliness and desire, without misery and rage, without disappointment, without crushing, impenetrable sadness.”
Some of the stories address 9/11, although obliquely and in a manner wholly unexpected - one features a town, seemingly located in some prior century, whose children become prone to bizarre fits, in the midst of which they experience strange visions of gigantic flaming angels flying into tall glass towers. Another features a young boy who seems to be possessed by the spirits of the 9/11 dead, demanding justice from everyone he meets and terrifying his father into an act so desperate I thought I might not be able to finish the rest of the book. The narrator of the title story is a drug addicted doctor who shuns his guardian angel, a ineffectual spirit that harrases him constantly to do the right thing, except when he is able to tune her out by getting his fix.
Adrian does give the reader small doses of hope and compassion, but only by the milliliter, so although I do plan to read more by him in the future, I feel the strong need for some lighter, more hopeful books in between.
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