Now And At The Hour Of Our Death

Spalding O’Connor is nearly killed by a vicious black dog who leaps out of thin air at

Spalding’s throat as he jogs along the edge of the Notre Dame Campus on a fine Fall

afternoon. During his awkward recovery, as he relearns the use of his hands, he

discovers a plot on his life arising from a priest at Notre Dame. A priest who seems to

be involved in Satanism and who conspires with a computer expert from England.

He and his wife go into hiding. Aided by friends, in particular an eccentric old

friend, aka The Wasted Sage, he discovers a scam by one of the prominent antagonists

in the culture wars among the Notre Dame faculty. He's a Priest who finds leading a

satanic cult is deliciously evil and fulfills many fantasies, including sexual ones. The

priest and his side-kick are both much too intelligent to be undone by a nobody like

Spalding O’Connor.

The atmosphere is limestone buildings with large wooden doors, satanists in

cowled robes, savage black dogs and innocent, green, midwestern countryside. And

virtue, corruption and satanism on the Catholic college campus of Notre Dame. A story

of crime and punishment and what it is like to be alive in South Bend, Indiana at the

University of Notre Dame Campus; in Morgantown WV, and in Falls Church, VA - in the

time soon after 9-11. Here are images which cause the reader to stop, let their eyes go

unfocused, and examine images which touch the heart. As the Wasted Sage once said,

“Imagine a guy with a house like Doctor Who’s Tardis. Magic, bigger on the inside than

on the outside. Everything - a whole world - is in his house. All he wants. And the

sonuva bitch goes outside and stands on his deck at night and stares up into space.

People are like that.”