Last week, I started reading I See You by Holly Lisle. I still am reading that book, and loving it. The entire story so far has been written at least competently, and in some instances, Holly has excelled. I totally get her characters, even when they don’t make normal sense, because she shows me who they are.

That’s my paper book. But I’ve also picked up an ebook by Sharon Cathcart (who will be visiting with us on this very blog on Thursday), her short novel (about 50K words) In the Eye of the Beholder. My first impressions: If 90% of everything is crap, then this definitely falls within the remaining 10%. I’m about ¼ through, and I’m very much enjoying it. Unfortunately, time flies when you’re having fun, and so do books; I’ll probably have finished both of these books in a blink of an eye, and then I’ll be looking for something else that I love reading.

In the Eye of the Beholder stars Erik, the Phantom of the Opera, and is set some time following the events of the famous story by Gaston Leroux. (According to this storyline, prior reports of Erik’s death have clearly been exaggerated.) But the real story of In the Eye of the Beholder revolves around the heroine, Claire, an educated but simple woman, who had lost her fiancé, the only man she loved, in a disaster just before they were to be married. Even though she is intelligent and capable, because of the way the law is written, her cousin has been given complete control over her estate, unless and until she marries, leaving her with no possessions and little spending money. She gently tends and performs with the horses at the opera house, a job that embodies her passion… until someone tries to murder her and make it look like an accident.

Here’s today’s teaser, from p. 48 of the Smashwords PDF edition:

I looked out the window but could only see a man, in profile, holding a lantern.

“Mademoiselle Claire,” the man called, “are you inside?”

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just follow the directions at the “Teaser Tuesdays” post.

-TimK

P.S. I’m gearing up to launch a new eBook Reviews blog. There are no posts up yet, but you can subscribe to the ebook reviews, in order to receive posts when they begin. The idea is that when I read a novel or memoir—in ebook form, or a book that has an electronic edition available—I’ll post a short review over there. To start with, I’m going through my backlog of book reviews, of books I’ve already read, and finding those that have electronic editions, as well as ebooks I’ve recently read. By the way, I’m particularly fond of low-priced ebooks, and I’ve found some that are definitely worthy of recommending.

Photo © 2007 Jason Eppink CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Here’s a story I’ve been keeping on the back burner for almost a year now. I haven’t published it until now, because it still hit too close to home. But this week, I’ve scheduled an interview with Sharon Cathcart, author of In the Eye of the Beholder, which I am currently reading, and a memoir Les Pensées Dangereuses. And parts of her story reminded me of certain elements of my story.

This is the story of the software-development project that plunged me into a deep depression (a continuation from part 3 of “Depression and the Software Developer”).

[Note: You can read the story from the beginning in order to catch up.]

It was only a couple months long, but it was the straw that broke this developer’s back. It was the project that made me realize how much I enjoyed making a difference, as I did in my first job after college. It made me realize how important it was to make a difference, rather than just being a cog in a useless, corporate, perpetual-motion machine. Most development managers simply don’t know how to let their developers make a difference, possibly because they’ve never known themselves what it feels like. And to this day, the memory of this painful project keeps me from taking the software-development industry seriously.

The project itself wasn’t that bad. I joined it as a consulting developer, along with a couple other consulting developers. The client had been desperate for short-term help, and I took on the project as a favor for a friend, who was already hip-deep in it. They were also on a limited budget, and so I offered a reduced rate, again as a favor to my friend. That was Idiotic Decision #1.

They gave me a “specification” for a feature they needed me to work on. For the purposes of this story, let’s call it the NOKWID feature (because No One Knows What It Does). NOKWID was a key part of the project, and they needed to show progress on it–and quickly–in order to justify the project’s funding. Unfortunately, the spec turned out to be nothing more than a rough collection of thoughts that one of the developers had thrown together, probably from notes he had made at meetings. I pointed out the numerous nebulous features called for in the spec, and I replied that I couldn’t possibly deliver NOKWID until these had been fleshed out.

Now, the project was being led by a software-developer-turned-manager type, who seemed way too busy to manage a software project. Let’s call him “Pointy-Hair 1.” And I was to be working with one of the staff developers, also with a pointy-haired background, a manager-turned-software-developer type, who we’ll call “Pointy-Hair A.” (You thought I was going to call him Pointy-Hair 2, right? No way! I don’t want Pointy-Hair A to think he’s any less pointy-haired than Pointy-Hair 1.)

I’d love to tell you all the crazy things I experienced in the span of a few months at the hands of this pair. But I fear I might become psychotic if I tried. So I’ll limit myself just to a single anecdote.

NOKWID depended on Feature X, which like everything else, was undeveloped and no one knew how it was supposed to work. Because of this, there was absolutely no way I could deliver code that worked with Feature X, and I told them as much.

In response to this, Pointy-Hair A told me that Feature X was something for “down the road.” We didn’t actually need to support it at this time. Whew! I breathed a sigh of relief and removed Feature X from the spec.

The next day, Pointy-Hair A added a paragraph to the spec talking about how NOKWID was to interact with Feature X.

This was repeated in different variations and with different specifics. It seemed that the longer I sought to understand and to document what NOKWID really was, the further I got from the truth. I had only a vague idea what I was supposed to be delivering, and Pointy-Hair 1 kept asking me when it would be “done.”

I complained that I couldn’t possibly deliver finished code–or even estimate how much time it would take–until I knew what the requirements were for NOKWID. And I told them that they needed to document the decisions and assumptions they were working off of, and to let me in on that part of the conversation. Each time I said so, they gave me the soothe-’em-down treatment, as though I were a hemorrhoid and not a key member of the project team.

“Don’t worry about that.” (Which I should have.)

“That will be ready long before you need it.” (Which it wasn’t.)

“Just ask for what you need, and we’ll get it to you.” (Which they didn’t, and I didn’t know what I needed, anyhow, because I didn’t know what I was supposed to be delivering!)

“Don’t let that hold you up.” (Which it ought to have, or at least ought to have made me take a beat.)

At about this point, I was thinking I was obviously not charging them enough, because they clearly weren’t listening to me. After all, I had successfully completed projects using this project model before; they had not. I was also one of the most senior people working on the project, in terms of years of experience, and had twice as much experience as even the most senior staff developer. But as is well known among consultants: knowledge, experience, and wisdom do not earn you respect; money does. If they had been paying me hundreds of dollars an hour for my advice, then they would have found some rationale for why my advice was actually worth that much. However, I had given them a discount, for the sake of my friend, who was now neck-deep.

Even under these demeaning and impossible circumstances, I decided to push on as best I could. That was Idiotic Decision #2.

(To be continued, one last time. The conclusion will run on Wednesday.)

I’ve had migraines on and off all week this week— That’s not the fun part. On Wednesday, my Beloved put in a loaf of bread to bake in the bread machine, and it reminded me of the following bit in From the Ashes of Courage:

“G’d m’rning,” she mumbled. “Aren’t you supposed to be the one who sleeps in?” She had always awoken at the break of dawn, while he had always overslept. And here she was, the morning half gone already. It had been a long time since she had slept in, and the experience refreshed and relaxed her. She assumed that everyone one else was out, maybe walking along the beach, maybe boating, or maybe even at church.

The strong, succulent aroma of clams blended with a different, fluffier, yeastier smell, like that of a bakery. She turned to see a loaf of piping hot bread cooling on a rack on the counter.

“Fresh bread!” she shouted, jarring Eddie nearly out of his sandals.

“Careful,” he warned playfully. “Man with hot skillet here.”

She sidled up to him and said, “Where did you get fresh baked bread from?”

“I made that.”

“Since when?” she said. George had never been much the cook. There were a few dishes he had learned to make, like the clams, but he would never have braved something like bread, that required measuring and mixing and kneading and rising and baking.

“Hey, I know how to do stuff.”

“Like bake bread?”

“Like use a bread machine,” he said.

“Smells delicious.” She was quickly realizing how empty her stomach was. She had not had a proper dinner the prior evening, and now she’d almost missed breakfast.

Eddie recognized the cooing in her voice, recognized it as delight. “Good. I’m glad you like it.”

It works similarly in the real world…

First, the machine goes Bee-bee-da-BEEP! in my ear.

Is the loaf supposed to be that big? Not a mushroom loaf, but still a little scary.

I shake the bread out of the pan, onto a cooling rack. It comes out quite easily...

The kneading blade frequently becomes stuck inside the loaf. I begin by loosening it around the edges with a chopstick.

After it's loose, I can pry the kneading blade out of the loaf... carefully.

Don't touch the kneading blade! It's still hot!

Ready to let the bread cool. Except...

I got this tip off a Twitter friend: if you want HOT, sliced, fresh bread, before the loaf cools, heat the knife first.

A hot knife keeps the hot bread from squishing while it's being sliced.

A simple but satisfying lunch: hot bread and cold butter—forgot to take the butter out of fridge to let it soften—tea, and noodle soup, with water to drink.

Till next time…
-TimK

I’m sitting here in my virtual living room with Sandra, of one of my favorite blogs Add Humor and Faith…mix well. I absolutely love her stories, especially the ones about her and her Hubby. And I actually wanted to have her over (virtually) for Valentine’s Day, to talk about love and marriage. But because of things happening on my end, I couldn’t pull it together. But I’m happy she’s able to spend some time with us today.

Hi, Sandy.

Hi, Tim!

As I understand it, you and Hubby will be married 45 years this coming June—the day, in fact, just before I turn “only 42.” A city girl and a country boy. And you’ve been in love with him since you were 15. How did you and Hubby first meet?

On New Year’s Eve when I was 15, I was staying overnight with my friend, Robyn. Her boyfriend, Wayne, called from a party he was at to tell her that he would like to stop over for a little while at midnight to see in the new year with her. But, she explained that I was there. No problem. He said he had a friend that he had wanted me to meet anyway, and that friend just happened to be right there at the party too! Okay, Robyn told him they could both stop over for just a little while.

When Wayne hung up the phone, he definitely had a problem. He didn’t really have a friend in mind to introduce me to, so he needed to find somebody quick! He looked around the room and his eyes landed on his friend Jim (probably one of the taller guys in the room, so he stood out). So he went over and gave Jim a “sales pitch” about Robyn’s friend—no surprise that Wayne then spent his entire adult life as a car salesman!—and convinced Jim to come with him to meet Robyn’s friend. The rest is history. Jim and I went together, off and on, for the rest of high school and married a year after I graduated. So, I’ve always given Wayne credit for picking my husband for me!

You once wrote that you got married at 19 years old “for all the normal teenage reasons.” Young people now think that’s too young to get married, and that their marriage will be more likely to fail unless they wait. Do you think your marriage was ever in danger because you got married so young?

That is such a good question. But when I think about it, I guess I would say that if anything getting married young helped rather than endangered our marriage.

First of all, because we were so young, we didn’t bring a lot of baggage from other relationships to the marriage. I think it specifically strengthened our bond that we had neither had premarital sex with each other or anyone else. But on the other hand, I also think it was a plus that we had both dated some other people at different times when we were not dating each other. I think the experience we gained from dating others helped us know more about how to make our own relationship better.

Also, we decided going into the marriage that we would wait awhile to have children. So for the two years we were married before we became parents we did a lot of growing up and also a lot of bonding just as a couple, before children were thrown into the mix. I feel like those two years of “just us” allowed us time to “learn” how to be married and to be grown ups.

Who taught you how to make a marriage work?

We both had happily married parents. Our parents had taught us all our lives, by their actions and words, what made a successful marriage work.

What one best piece of advice can you give young married couples, just starting out?

Always speak respectfully and kindly of your spouse. Put his best foot forward for him!

When a group of women are together, invariably there will be one or two who make little remarks about their husbands’ shortcomings. Most of the time, these are women I know well enough to know that they love their husbands. I don’t think they even realize that they are making their husbands look bad to their friends.

My theory is: If I only share my husband’s best qualities when I am talking to others, doesn’t that makes me look “brilliant” for having chosen him? On the other hand, if I talk badly about my spouse and make him look bad to others, aren’t I really saying, “How dumb was I to marry that idiot!”?

Also, I do believe that people in general tend to live up to what is said about them. I know myself, that if I hear my husband tell someone how well I do something, you can bet that that is something that I’m going to do my best to be good at!

Throughout our marriage I have many times told people, “I have been president of Jimmy’s fan club since I was 15 years old.”

There’s also a little self-talk involved in this. If you are constantly looking for his good points, it just makes it that much easier to love him!

Wow. Even I am thinking that’s profound. Thanks so much for sharing with us, Sandra.

Be sure to check out Sandra’s blog Add Humor and Faith…mix well and read some of the stories of her experiences.

Till next time…

-TimK

I just finished Taxed to Death, which actually did get better near the end. I’ll post a better review later. For now, I need to pick a next book to read. Now, I did download a number of ebooks from Smashwords, where numerous authors (including yours truly) are offering their titles at 25% off, 50% off, or even 100% off, for Read-an-eBook Week. (Which is probably why the site is often down this week, because it’s getting hammered by voracious eBook readers.)

However, I think that for now, I’d like to read one of the out-of-print Holly Lisle titles I picked up recently. I plotted and schemed for a long time to get my hands on those… OK, that’s not exactly true. But it is true that I’ve wanted to collect more of Holly’s books for a long time. And I See You would really hit the spot right about now. This is one of Holly’s romantic suspense titles, the story of paramedic Dia Courvant, who rescued the sole survivor of a terrible car accident, to find her own husband dead in the wreckage. Now, four years later, a series of deadly car crashes has brought handsome detective Brig Hafferty into Dia’s life. She’s drawn to Brig, but can she trust him enough to tell him of the terror that stalks her? Because Dia has received a message warning her of danger and death, a message that seems to have been sent to her from beyond the grave.

Holly had a career as an ER nurse before she became a fiction author, known for her vibrant worlds and deep characters. The Little One says that she “didn’t like to read as much,” before she read Holly’s Moon and Sun books: The Ruby Key and The Silver Door. (Maybe I can convince her to try Harry Potter.) Now, she’s reading Talyn, which I haven’t read yet and which is ambitious for a pre-teen. (After she finishes it, she can try Twilight as an alternative.)

I expect I See You to be right on when it comes to the gestalt of Dia’s work. Additionally, my brother is a paramedic, and my sister-in-law’s a nurse, and my Beloved is also in the medical field, and my other brother works in the medical industry. (So when I claim that such-and-such a government healthcare scheme will only increase the costs and demand for medical care, at least you know I’m not saying it out of selfish interest.) So I also expect I See You to hit close to home, and maybe I’ll even pass it around after I’m done with it… as long as I can be guaranteed to get it back again.

Finally, here’s today’s teaser, from p. 165:

He walked over to the nurses’ station and said, “I got a call in from the lab on the agent that was in Dia Courvant’s air. Her doctor around?”

[ . . . ]

“So she was getting only about eight percent oxygen, assuming the rest of the stuff in her tank was good air.”

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just follow the directions at the “Teaser Tuesdays” post.

-TimK

Photo © 2009 Trevin Chow CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Authors and publishers, in my opinion, spend way too much time sucking up to literary critics, which is why I decided to become a book reviewer.

Of course, no critic actually deserves the respect he gets (myself included), not for his opinion in any case. And I dare say, publishers wouldn’t give critics the time of day, were it not for the fact that bad reviews can severely hurt sales of a good book, and that good reviews can severely boost sales of a mediocre one. That’s why it’s more important to pander to the tastes and whims of the critics, than to publish books that would actually please ordinary readers.

Authors are not much better, because most authors believe, on some level, that literary critics actually know what they’re talking about. So when a critic doesn’t like the book she wrote, she believes that there’s something wrong with her, because the critic said so. Fortunately, there’s a simple antidote to this line of thinking: the 5 rules of book reviews, which I’ll get to in a moment.

Some years ago, a critic reviewed a piece of my work. He mocked and derided, not just the work, but me personally. In his opinion, I was a hack and a huckster, who couldn’t put two words together to save my life. And in his view, I should go back into the hole whence I came, only coming out after I had actually proven my value to the literary community. Moreover, he made all these pronouncements—and he plainly admitted this in his review—without reading a single word of the work in question, based solely on the back-cover blurb and other marketing materials.

It was then that I realized three things about reviewers—and this part is actually true: Firstly, they are writers in their own rights, with fans of their own. Secondly, their job is not to give an honest evaluation of your work, but to pander to their own readers’ desires and prejudices. Thirdly, if they can do so without actually reading your book, they will, and with impunity.

If I sound a little bitter at reviewers, that should tell you something about how I feel about myself (since I too write reviews, sometimes very opinionated reviews). Factor in the fact that I’m also an indie publisher who is genetically incapable of sucking up to literary critics, and you’ll finally understand why I should probably be in a mental institution.

The reason I’m not in a mental institution is because I have discovered and follow the 5 rules of book reviews, which all authors and readers alike should memorize, for the benefit of society as a whole:

1. If the reviewer gives the book one star, he’s an opinionated jackass who would have condemned Tom Sawyer for being too trite, Huckleberry Finn as too racist, and Mark Twain for having a stupid pseudonym.

2. If he gives the book two stars, he has no passion, can’t get worked up enough even to condemn the book. (Two stars is the worst rating a book can receive: at least the one-star reviewer hated it; that’s something.)

3. If he gives the book three stars, he’s saying he’d like to rate it lower, but he would feel bad about doing so; so he pads his review with tripe about the author being a good writer, even though he didn’t like this particular book and doesn’t plan to read any more books by that author if he can help it.

4. If he gives the book four stars, he’s trying to appear diplomatic, knowing that the publisher expects a 5-star rating, but also that his readers would suspect foul play if he didn’t find at least something wrong with it.

5. If he gives the book five stars, he’s probably pandering to the author’s ego, hoping that the author will in turn recommend him on her blog to her fans, or mention him in an interview, or—best yet—when he writes his book, give it five stars in return. (Some reviewers don’t even review books that they can’t rate favorably, knowing that what goes around comes around.)

So while I still read, and I still comment on and review the books that I read, I give little weight to reviews by others, knowing that they say more about the reviewer than they do about me. (And that is also actually true.)

Instead, I find books to read that I think I myself would enjoy, and to hell with what the literary critics say!

-TimK

P.S. This piece was supposed to be funny, and I guess it is, in a sardonic, “funny ’cause it’s true!” sort-of way. If you find it angry or bitter, I apologize. I’ll try to post something better next week.

P.P.S. Please also note that there are some reviewers out there who actually do give unfettered, honest opinions about the books they review, regardless of what their fans think (or whether they even have any fans). Their reviews still say more about them than about the book, but at least they’re not trying to suck up to anyone in the process.

I’m sitting here in my virtual living room, talking to indie author Jess C Scott, who wrote EyeLeash: A Blog Novel, which I just reviewed a couple weeks ago.

Hi, Jess.

Hello there!

Now, EyeLeash is your first book.

It’s my first published book. I have another two or three that literally “see the light of day” on an annual basis, on average.

Excellent! I’m looking forward to reading a lot more from you in the future.

What inspired you to write EyeLeash?

A series of weird, synchronized events, combined with my active imagination, inspired the first draft. Which I thought was pretentious and lacked meat once I’d finished it, so I went back and added all the potentially offensive material that I had deliberately excluded.

<chuckles> I’ve heard that the title is a partial anagram of someone’s name. Is that right?

Indeed — though I only figured later that I had accidentally left one letter of the person’s name out. However, I was still really delighted having the word “EyeLeash” staring back at me.

Why did the title “EyeLeash” catch… er… your eye?

“EyeLeash” caught my eye because I’d been fiddling around with elements for the story at the time. (I was 19.) I thought the title was a good metaphor for an obsession where all focus is on the one desired.

Does the title have any additional meaning?

I guess the title refers to an attachment to the value of “external appearance,” like good looks, good packaging, and so forth.

I noticed some themes that I saw in the story, but is there a particular message that you had in mind when you were writing it?

I believe the bottom line might be to leave no stone unturned, as they say — going through the reasons behind one’s thoughts and actions leads to a better understanding of oneself. I believe this creates a greater sense of self-identity. It’s an inner kind of connection which all the money in the world just can’t buy. The theme could be an abstract by-product of my own relation to the rampant consumerism and materialism of contemporary society. One should never sacrifice substance for style, ideally.

Now, your second book, 4Play, you market as “erotica.” Why erotica?

I’ve always had an interest in sexuality. Gender constructs can be incapacitating at times, especially in a societal context. I think it takes a certain level of courage and purity to be really true to oneself sexually, which is what I sought to explore in via 4:Play. To add depth and scope, I crossed multiple genres in the anthology, though I guess I knew the book would thus be “non-commercially categorizable.”

What are you reading now?

I’ve to continue Carrie by Stephen King some time. It’s awesometastic! I recently finished Terrence Dean’s Hiding in Hip Hop, on the rap industry’s persistent “down-low” culture. I’ll be reading Shakespeare and Herman Melville—university coursework—and going through various notes—in four separate notebooks, alas—for my next book.

Sounds like fun.

Thanks so much for talking to us!

My pleasure.

You can find out more about Jess and her work at www.JessCScott.com.

Photo © 2007 Tony Unruh CC BY-ND 2.0

I really needed a quick and easy post for today (because I had spent so much time and so many words getting carried away Monday). And I had no idea what I was going to write about. But you know what we always say: The Lord will provide.

And provide He did.

First of all, I want to state, for the record, that ever since George Orwell, the term “big brother” has gotten a bad rap. Big brothers are older, wiser, and in this case, more promiscuous. That is, they’re like pride-blinded parents, fawning over their little ones’ performance and gushing about how good it was, even though we all know that it sucked. But before you get the wrong idea, maybe I should explain…

I hadn’t heard from my little brother in quite some time, and I was wondering what he was up to. As time has passed, he and his Beloved have established their own routine and their own life, and I and my family have done the same, and that means we don’t really get to hang out anymore. We get to catch up only at family get-togethers— and on Facebook. So I flipped over to his Facebook page, to see what I had missed of his recent ongoings, and I discovered this delightfully entertaining YouTube video. Apparently, he and Mario and Dan and Chris all got together with two iPhones and a web-cam, and recorded this indie video of a song so silly and meaningless, it’s destined to be a hit.

Seriously:

1. It’s simple.
2. It’s catchy.
3. It doesn’t mean a damn thing, so it won’t piss anyone off.
4. It conjures up images of fun and relaxation.
5. Who could want for anything more?!

Pop hit material, I’m tellin’ ya. And this unplugged performance, in my little brother’s living room, is just “real” enough to sweep the Internet like a giant, digital vacuum cleaner.

On a tree-lined avenue,
With nothing left to do,
We’ll lay back on the porch
Under a bamboo tiki torch.

Aah… A bamboo tiki torch…

-TimK

I’m about half-way through Debra Purdy Kong’s backlist novel Taxed to Death. (And all you rabid readers are saying, “Get on with it already, will ya?!” Remember, however, I have other things to do all day besides just reading novels. I expect this one to take me at least another week.)

I’m not an expert on the mystery/suspense genre, but are the characters supposed to be this flat? My best experiences with suspense come from Holly Lisle’s romantic suspense novels (the few that I’ve read so far) and from Kathy Reichs’s Temperance Brennan novels (at least the one that I’ve read so far). Those have great, compelling characters. My best experiences of mystery come from—who else?—Sherlock Holmes and from Stanislaw Lem’s The Investigation (which is way more X-Files than it is Sherlock Holmes), but again: great, compelling characters. I get that the suspects are supposed to be mysterious in a mystery. But if I was given a clue as to why the hero (the detective) of this story is doing what he’s doing, I didn’t get it. Why didn’t he just say, “We’re in danger here?” Why all the counter-productive subterfuge? Why didn’t he explain his logic and motivations? (To me as much as to the other character?)

(I always worry that when I say something like that, that the author will give me an unfavorable interview, or will say that I “don’t get it.” Of course, she would be right: I’m not getting it. Still, I really gotta finish that humorous post about why book reviews truly are meaningless.)

In any case, here’s today’s teaser, from p. 55:

“How long do you plan to keep me prisoner?”

“You’re not a prisoner, you’re a free person without options right now; there’s a difference.”

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just follow the directions at the “Teaser Tuesdays” post.

-TimK

Photo © 2007 Joshua Bousel CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

This past Saturday night began the Jewish holiday of Purim. Since Saturday was also the Sabbath, after morning services and lunch at our synagogue, we had games for the kids, crafts, a class on the book of Esther, a Jewish folk dancing class, pizza. Then we had evening services, followed by reading the story of Esther. This year, the kids also did an “Esther Reloaded” Purim play, parodied on Star Wars. Lots of laughs.

It’s tradition in Jewish synagogues to dress up in costumes on Purim, and we had plenty of them. The Little One dressed up as a cat. One boy was Indiana Jones. And one of my friends was a bar of ivory soap. But I think the best Purim costumes I ever saw still go to D and his wife S, back when S was still pregnant with their little boy. She came as an oven, with a loaf of bread baking inside. (A “bun” in the oven, get it?) And he was the chef. Ba dum bum.

We also had lots of Hamentashen, filled cookies folded in the shape of a three-cornered hat, such as that which Haman is said to have worn. In the story of Esther, Haman told Xerxes that the Jews were a terrorist threat and persuaded him have all the Jewish people in the land executed, before they caused national chaos. Haman did this because—quite frankly—a certain Jew ticked him off, and so naturally he resorted to mass genocide.

(I imagine him a petty, little man, not of the short-and-noble kind, but of the kind who stands strong and important and fat and is very insecure about his size.)

It’s also tradition, during the reading of the story, every time Haman’s name is mentioned, to shout “BOOOO!” and spin noise-makers or blast horns or whatever you can, just in case you weren’t clear on what we really think of him.

What Haman didn’t know, however, is that Xerxes’s beloved queen, Esther, just happened to be Jewish, and the man who had ticked Haman off just happened to be Esther’s cousin and adopted father. (Oops.) And so when Esther intervened, boy did the fit hit the shan.

I can just imagine that moment, in the queen’s banquet room, food and drink aplenty, servants in attendance, the king and queen reclining in their royal robes and jewelry, and Haman at his place of honor beside the king, enjoying a cup of wine with the royal family, feeling pretty good about himself, because only him, the most important advisor to the king, did Esther invite as an honored guest to this private banquet.

Then Xerxes asks, “My Queen, something has bothering you. I’ve seen it for two days now. You’ve been very sweet in planning this surprise dinner. Thank you so much. Please, whatever the problem is, let us help. What do you need? Just name it, up to half my kingdom, and it’s yours.”

“If I have found favor with you, O King,” Esther replies, “and if it pleases Your Majesty, please grant me my life—this is my petition—and spare my people—this is my request.”

At this point, Xerxes is wondering what she could possibly be talking about. “Grant me my life?” This must be a metaphor. “Spare my people?” Which people? Has someone threatened her? Who?

“I and my kinfolk,” Esther explains, “are to be destroyed and slaughtered and annihilated. If we had merely been sold into slavery, I wouldn’t have bothered you about it, because it wouldn’t have been worth disturbing the King for something so trivial. But—”

“Who is doing this?” Xerxes interrupts, frustration and fury clearly mounting on his face. “No one threatens you, ever. Where is the man who dares to do this?”

Esther turns her gaze to Haman, and slowly it dawns on the villain what he has done.

“My adversary and enemy,” Esther says, her voice wavering, tears beginning to form in her eyes, “is this vile man, Haman.”

Without a word, Xerxes stands and storms out of the room. He paces the palace garden for hours, trying to calm himself, trying to analyze the situation. He figures out that—unknown to him—Esther must be of Jewish ancestry, and that they are to be murdered, and that Haman had lied to him, because she and her family are clearly not of the evil, dangerous sort that Haman had described. But what can he do? He has already issued the order for their annihilation, and it can’t be undone. And now, for the second time in recent years, he is regretting one of his own edicts. Reflecting back, he acutely realizes that Haman was loyal to him only as a means to personal advancement. Xerxes always knew this was so, but it never bothered him so much before, because almost everyone honored him either out of ambition or out of fear. But that’s what made Esther and her family so different; they supported him not out of fear or ambition, but out of respect. Haman’s ambition never bothered Xerxes before, because it never before hit quite so close to home.

He returns to see Haman throwing himself at Queen Esther, on her couch, his hands grasping at her, pleading for pity, clearly not caring about the indignity.

“What now?!” the king snaps, his anger returning. “Killing her wasn’t good enough? Now you’re going to try to rape her, in my own house, right in front of me?!”

Haman did not live too much longer after that. He was dragged by armed guards, sobbing and pitiful, stripped of rank, a nothing, to be hanged on the very gallows that he himself had built on which to kill one of Esther’s own relatives.

We usually read this story as God’s justice triumphing over the selfish ambitions of an evil man. But this year, I saw it as something different. Because all of us, at one time or another, have worn Haman’s hat. Maybe we haven’t played fast and loose with the power of the king—and maybe this is also a story about the danger of the king’s power, because there are many people even in our society who regularly play fast and loose with that power, for their own passions or ambitions. But maybe we haven’t threatened the queen’s life. Maybe we haven’t attempted genocide. Maybe we aren’t “that bad.”

But we have acted on personal offense, and have rationalized hating others. We have disparaged good men. We have lashed out in righteous indignation at other human beings, regardless of whether or not they deserved it. We have failed to show mercy, because we didn’t see how it could help us. We’ve called people names, and out of fear have fought them as though they were enemies. We do this in our personal lives as well as our political lives.

Maybe Esther is also a story about the value of mercy. Not only mercy that we show to others—because if Haman had shown mercy, he ultimately would not have been executed. But also the mercy that God shows to us, because God no longer demands justice from us, but bestows His grace.