Book Reviews

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The Sinner
K. Trap jones
C. 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9849782-1-2
Blood Bound Books
www.bloodboundbooks.net
299 pages $12.99

This is K. Trap Jones’ first full length book. It has been awarded first prize by The Florida Writer’s Association. Jones has previously written about one-hundred short stories that are published in anthologies of horror stories. He claims he is influenced by Dante Alighieri, Edgar Allen Poe, Bram Stoker, and H.P. Lovelace. His book follows the same macabre tradition as used by those authors. Today this tradition is classified as horror; a hundred years ago, it was often used by authors who wanted to get a point across.

The Sinner starts out with the protagonist dying in a cave. He gradually becomes aware that God has imprisoned him in the cave to encounter the seven deadly sins, which will be presented to him by seven demons. He encounters wrath presented by Amon, greed presented by Mammon, sloth presented by Belphegor, gluttony presented by Beelzebub, lust presented by Asmodeus, envy presented by Leviathan, and pride presented by Lucifer. Jones develops these encounters in interesting circumstances, showing the protagonist starting off as a more or less morally upright person becoming gradually influenced by each demon until, finally, the protagonist is beguiled enough to commit a serious sin. This story looks to me like a morality story, and it touches on real topics that influence human destiny. In The Sinner, God, of course, is real. So are the demons Amon, Mammon, Belphegor, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Leviathan, and Lucifer. All of these are named in Biblical Tradition, which has influenced humans for thousands of years.

The protagonist is first tempted through wrath. In this encounter, he is a beggar on the streets, but he once owned a cottage on his own land. Two adjacent kingdoms got into a power struggle and tried to extend their kingdoms. His cottage was in the middle. One king seized his land, burned his cottage, and severely beat him, causing him to become a beggar on the streets. One night, while on the streets, a wealthy man accused him of stealing and he was severely beaten again. He was assisted by a kind woman named Amon, who gives him two daggers for self-defense. Amon turns out to be a demon. The protagonist then struggles with the anger he feels and his new-found ability to avenge himself.

The protagonist is next tempted through greed. Here he is a carpenter in a village. Gypsies warn of a plague. Later, the protagonist sees a man who seems to be lost. He approaches the man and sees he has the plague. The man is Mammon, and he has an important task—to spread the plague, but he has a cure: one vial of antidote sufficient for one person. The protagonist has a choice: he can save himself by consuming the vial, or he can try to save everybody by giving the vial to city elders so they can try to mass produce it.

The next temptation is through sloth. The protagonist owns a farm and thinks an irrigation system will increase the farm’s production. He meets Belphegor who says he can build an irrigation system, but he wants to use lumber from a sacred stand of oaks in a distant valley.

The next temptation is through gluttony. The protagonist now owns a grocery store. Prophets on street corners warn of a coming devastation. The protagonist plans to store up groceries so he can sell them when the devastation arrives. He doesn’t handle meat and felt storing meat would be advantageous. He meets a butcher named Beelzebub who teams up with him to provide both meat and groceries for the coming devastation.

The next temptation is through lust. The protagonist is a tailor. His shop is across the street from a palace in which lives a beautiful princess. He falls in love with her even though he has never spoken to her and she is not even aware that he exists. Every day he stops his work to watch her leave the palace and watch her return. He is obsessed with her. One day he meets an elderly lady named Asmodeus who works in the palace. She sees his love for the princess and asks if he would like to meet her. You will be surprised how this turns out.

The next temptation is through envy. The protagonist is a blacksmith. He makes weapons and armor out of iron. He is concerned to obtain quality ore so his workmanship can be improved. He has employed a striker to mine the ore for him. One day he finds his striker dead in his mine and another striker present in the mine. The other striker, by the name of Leviathan, offers to work for him and does a better job than the previous striker. Eventually the mine runs out of quality ore. The striker offers to steal higher quality ore from the mine of the blacksmith he previously worked for. This presents the protagonist with a difficult choice.

The next temptation is through pride. The protagonist is a street corner prophet. On a pilgrimage to a mountain shrine dedicated to God, he meets Lucifer, who tells the protagonist that it is time to make his final choice in the eyes of God. The stakes here are very high. All of these encounters are written in a unique writing style that I think was developed by James Frey in his A Million Little Promises. This style is probably unfamiliar to most readers, but it is effective to convey a stream of consciousness viewpoint of the protagonist and to show the disturbed state of the protagonist. The paragraphs are all arranged similar to free verse. All subsequent lines in each paragraph are indented to right of the first line. This style takes a little getting used to, but it soon becomes very easy to read. If Jones intended to show what is likely to happen if humans do not resist temptation. I think his story did a good job doing it.

The Sinner presents a believable portrayal of how easily humans can be influenced to pursue their passions to an extreme and wind up committing very serious sins. Looking around at trends in society today, one can see a very strong presence of the seven deadly sins operating in all phases of human activity. Murders are committed, even by young people; rapes are perpetrated, even against young girls who are forced into prostitution; thefts are rampant; lust and all kinds of sexual pursuits permeate society; and pride is everywhere, especially pride exhibited by some heads of government, by some celebrities, even by some super heroes and super villains who act as though they were god when they pursue their own objectives: indeed, all seven deadly sins are very evident everywhere in society. Jones presents food for thought on how this is possible.

One thing that struck me is how was it possible that the Nazi government influenced so many of its citizens to co-operate with the extermination of humans they felt were inferior. Those who participated worked at it day by day for years on end to capture these humans, transfer them to extermination camps, and liquidate them, even young children. I’m astounded that they could do it day after day collecting them and gassing them with no qualms that what they are doing is evil, a deadly sin. I think they would have continued until all those they thought inferior were liquidated had not the Allies defeated the Nazis. How can this be? Jones’ story, even though it is fiction, gives an insight on how sin can misdirect human ambitions.

Jones paints a grim picture when the protagonist encounters Lucifer, who tempts him with pride. I know God pitted humans against demons when God cursed Satan in the Garden: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between her seed and your seed.” The Sinner is marketed as a horror story, and if humans are destined to be succumbed by devils and be abandoned by God, it would be a horror story indeed. But there is another side to this story that draws on real traditions that are already ingrained into human expectations. It is true that God allows humans to be tempted, but it was not to trip humans up; it was that God wanted humans to confront evil at its source. In this struggle between good and evil, God lets all of us be presented with basically two choices: choose God or choose Satan.

I think, in our culture where very little Biblical revelation is still believed, it is good to remind people of this. I think Jones’ writings will stimulate imagination and present sobering food for thought. I got a lot out of The Sinner. I think you will get a lot out of it also.

Maurice A. Williams
http://www.mauriceawilliams.com

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