CHARACTERS
The main character is FRAN O'ROURKE, whose human life hampers his afterlife. He is a young, energetic spirit in the afterlife who desires success, yet cannot imagine what shape that success ought to take; he has the ambition of a great man but he is confused and doesn’t know what to be ambitious toward —at least, not at the start of the book.
When a human, his God-given talents enabled him to be good, but were never enough to make him great: they made him a USMC pilot, but he got shot down and killed (it may or may not have been his fault but he cannot shake the notion that it was). This was traumatizing, and his subsequent worldview or internal paradigm in the afterlife is that he's "just not good enough,” and because of that paralyzed about what to do. The PTSD of the crash and the fundamental sense of inadequacy causes him to flake out on the love of his life and to let go of her when she answers the call of her destiny. He attempts to bliss-out in Heaven and let go of all cares (a common approach in the afterlife) but attempting it drives him bonkers: the call of the wild is too great in him; he feels too strongly he has something he must do, and at last he applies for the Special Operations program, 40 years after he let go of the girl on account of it.
After Commando graduation he is not selected by any group —on design, but Fran doesn’t know this. In desperation he affiliates with his father's special ops team, the Roués, which was prearranged by his father, but Fran never learns that. The Roués are so-named because they are the Rogues of Heaven's armed forces. They are all a bit like Fran- great in their own domains and applying their other experience to this military problem. The Roués are like three-sport athletes competing in a one-sport world.
[The standard line within heaven's military are a bunch of bureaucratic dorks; from once being great, it has morphed into rule-following set of do-gooders, theoretical wonks, logically accurate but so cautious and political as to be ineffectual and to regress into the mean slavishly obligated to their world-view and incapable of visualizing or accepting or predicting or acting on the fact that Life escapes such idolatrous definitions, that the rules must be broken in order to reflect actual life. They are also tunnel-visioned and suffer from lack of other types of experience.
The Roues are successful --and they are successful-- precisely because they either understand this (Jack O'Rourke), are above it (Joe Campbell), ignore it (Jaques Francois) or never bothered to think that way about it (Istvan Kovacs).]
Fran has maturing to do in Heaven and it plays out in several ways. He relies on instinct to get him through but in order to mature in a characteristically human manner he must cognitively understand (not just instinctively understand) what he is doing and why, and where he needs to go next. Also, he must learn DEEP in his soul that he cannot do it alone. In the course of the book he benefits greatly from his company mates, and in particular from another young agent named Deirdre Cavanaugh (who broke his heart). She coaches by her example and forces Fran to accept a single shape and to be great at that, and most importantly she shows Fran his own broken paradigm and forces him to overcome & shift out of it and find wholeness through partnering with another person.
Fran's character is spontaneous, impulsive, and explosive. He finds success not because he prepares for it, but because his natural intensity and discipline and self-opinion result in it. To transform into what he needs to be Fran has to have several new things. When, through the book, he achieves his true success, he finally understands what he really wants out of his life, and proposes marriage to Deirdre Anne Cavanaugh.
DIERDRE was a happy child taken suddenly from the world by Leukemia. It was at an age (12-13) where she was just old enough to understand what was being stolen from her by the early death, and to develop a sense about the party she was going to miss. Exactly at the moment when Life was opening up, she's cut down by a disordered force of nature contorting her innermost self - neoplasia; precisely when she was about to become what it is to become a human outside of Eden, tasting the struggles and joys, earning and losing satisfaction, shedding someday that burden of innocence...
The bitter sense of disappointment and disillusionment could have poisoned her forever but instead, in the afterlife she converted that tension and energy into a positive sentiment. What she wants more than anything else, what she wants with every breath, every step, is to live deeply and completely. She uses that certainty to dispel with the superficial bullshit and to tap into life's deep undercurrents. But the simple life is not for her; nay, she has too much energy for that. Nor is she at all content to simply witness history: she intends to MAKE it!! that’s why she joined the Special Forces. Although supremely dangerous, she saw it as the way for her to make the greatest impact in the universe that she could.
She is devoted to Jack O’Rourke (the man who adopted her spirit in the afterlife because her parents weren’t dead yet), to The Roués (Jack O’Rourke’s Special Ops unit), to self-development and to the mission of saving Anne Murphy. Deirdre is unafraid of commitment whether it's to the unit or to Fran, and in fact an important role for her is to teach Fran that only in giving up his external freedom (to the Roués, to the mission of Anne Murphy, to falling in love with herself) will he achieve internal freedom and meaning.
Deirdre was born in Ireland, and moved to Boston with her family, just before she died. She has an Irish accent whenever drunk, angry, or excited.
WHAT DOES DEIRDRE NEED? She needs a worthy counterpart, a man who can match her and as a partner/teammate enable her to accomplish what she couldn't accomplish alone.
WHAT HOLDS DEIRDRE BACK? She gets acutely panicked that she's going to lose it all again. She hates herself at times for jeopardizing her own existence in her frantic pursuit of life.
EUPHESTUS is a small-town kid, orphaned at a young age in Louisiana (Lafourche parish; completely rural on the bayou), but a survivor. He's got a canny knack for survival predicated upon his intuitive, almost feral understanding of Life. It may seem like a simple understanding but whenever it's put to the test, whether in intellectually confusing or in morally ambivalent circumstances, he proves it's not a simple code because it's nimble enough to effectively and piquantly answer what his more learned companions cannot.
Euph is a kindred spirit to Istvan (who takes a liking to him immediately, like a son), but also opposite to Istvan; he is pliant where Istvan is rigid, Euph is adaptable where Istvan is forceful; he’s physically weak, whereas Istvan is physically strong. Euph has an innate style: of dress, behavior, speech, of living.
In life Euph is just getting by, and I mean he is just getting by. He’s poor as a church mouse and society doesn’t expect a single thing from him. In fact, he’s left in Afghanistan when his unit re-deploys and they never notice it! It’s unthinkable that Euph would take responsibility for the problems of governance or of others or of the world, no less; or that anyone would ask him to. He's a forgettable, forgotten sort of person during his first life. Which is also what makes him a peculiar choice to be recruited by Jack O’Rourke for the Roués.
Euph’s state of bliss cannot last… and it doesn’t! First, he falls deeply in love with a wonderful woman, someone just like him a “forgettable.” And he acutely feels the problem of being a nobody: he doesn’t have the resources to keep his love alive. Unlike Fran, who had the chance but was confused and therefore lost Deirdre, Euph knows exactly what he wants but has no resources and in so doing loses his love with Jyrgal (Euph gets shot in the chest and is separated form Jyrgal by death).
Why did Roué's recruit him? As Christ had said blessed are the meek, and the last shall be first. Euph has, in a word, great spirit. In the afterlife he has potential to be great because of his innate integrity —an integrity which sources from his very marrow— and his utter resilience and canny resourcefulness.
In fact the rest of the Roué's don't understand why Jack picked him, either. But Jack saw the above in him, recognized his inner greatness, and also that he would balance out his somewhat flamboyant son, Fran.
WHAT DOES EUPHESTUS WANT? Euph wants to live a decent life, to love Jyrgal, to have a small place in the world.
WHAT IS IN HIS WAY? The world doesn't care about little people like Euphestus, even little people with a big heart, and it grinds him underfoot without a second thought.
JACQUES FRANCOIS
Jaques is a debonaire, ladies man with panache and elan; he's a slave to fashion, and a gentleman raconteur. All of this is collected inside a devoted Sergeant Major of the French Foreign Legion who died in the siege of Dien Bien Phu in a vainglorious effort to defend the base against the overwhelming attack of the Vietnamese forces. He is completely given over to his military career. It's his emotional and psychological center, it’s his avenue into life, being in the FFL and in particular being a Sergeant Major (the very highest Enlisted rank and a position of earned prestige) in it, and while doing so he loves women, food, drink. He'd shoot an enemy like a farmer might shoot a varmint; he isn't phased by fear or hesitation. He's decorated and proud of his "glorious" death in the pathetic battle of Dien Bien Phu.
He's funny, charming and elegant, self-absorbed, randy, brave, committed, vain, a character from a former era, and a terrific talent.
ISTVAN KOVACS
Istvan a spontaneous political fighter for the Hungarian Revolution. Tremendous vigor and vitality. He's rough hewn, organic, sensible, unafraid. He's not a trained soldier, however his natural toughness lends him to it well. Like Dostoyevski's Russian peasant in "War and Peace" who with a handaxe could matter of factly dispatch one after another of Napoleon's fighters in a guerilla-style approach, Istvan is effective. He's the converse of a SEAL, not a product of fancy training, and not egotistical, but intrepid, just as lethal. Rather than sophisticated he's blunt; rather than nimble he's direct.
Jack O'Rourke is the leader of the Roués and a consummate mentor. He's not perfect himself, he likes a drink, likes the ladies (to look at, to chat with, but not touch he’s a devoted husband), and he gets out-maneuvered routinely by his peers at the Command-level because he is inattentive at and uncommitted to those boardroom gymnastics. However superior to anybody else, he has a sublime insight into what Heaven is and what it is not, what it needs and what it does not need, and that insight enables him to recruit a terrifically effective team and to lead them to great success at the most critical of missions —without any substantive support from outside.
Other compatriots of his cannot understand his success because they can't conceive of what Jack understands, that the precepts for Heaven are only 95% right, that the secret is that 5% escape.
Jacks biggest maneuver this book is to surrender to Morozov, become his prisoner, and turn him over to their side.
MOROZOV is a key character of the book and a fascinating individual.
He was a former KGB officer in Life, important functionary in the establishment of the Soviet Union, one of those thousands who had been necessary and influential in the establishment of the totalitarian state, and he did it out of a zeal, an idealism, out of a thought that they could make humanity better. But they were mistaken that humanity could be made better only by ideology and the result of the miscalculation was terrifying.
Despite his support of the regime, ultimately he was betrayed by Stalin and the communists. and his family and friends were decimated intentionally. His wife was sent to Siberia for being half Jewish, where she died. Morozov chose Hell, nevertheless, following the overall course of his spiritual vector.
While in hell, though, and through his psychotherapy with Jack O’Rourke (who he has as his prisoner), he begins to realize the source of his betrayal. The Communist ideology, being based in secularism, is ultimately ruthless: It treats his family (the Bolsheviks kill everyone in the village in which he grew up for [a false] suspicion of sedition) with disregard; his brother dies out of negligence; his wife is essentially killed for having a Jewish mother; the Eastern front of WWII was beyond hellish because the maniac Stalin fundamentally did not care about his soldiers or his people.
Morozov, through these bitter disillusionments, gradually falls out of devotion to the regime. Not at first: in Hell, he is formidable. But it takes Jack O’Rourke to help Morozov see what he’s missing in life, why it’s important, and how to find meaning once again. In the end it is Morozov, the best sniper in the business, the man who shot Jack Kennedy (and through Jack realizes he regrets having done it) who helps shoot the would-be assassin of President Murphy and saves the day.
BRANDI is a cross between Marilyn Monroe and a Sorority princess: Sultry, seductive, and politically savvy and ambitious. She is sexy as a movie star, and as ambitious as one, too. She is not athletic at all, and is the opposite to Deirdre in many ways.
She died in a freak problem: she broke her leg skiing, was on pain killers, and got drunk with her sorority friends. The guy who had been taking advantage of her drunkenness left her passed out; she choked on vomit and died.
In the afterlife she wants to control people, things. She enjoys raw power. Things exist for her to govern it, not for its benefit (like President Murphy) but because her worldview only makes sense if she has someone to boss around.
OLYMPICO SANCHEZ
Olympico was a low to mid level gang-banger and enforcer in a Mexican gang in Juarez. He got shot and killed in some fight or other. He is an enforcer for the Red Horses. He is a “cholo” and dresses like one. Fierce, tough, unafraid, and thoughtless.
ADONAI (God) is the primary mover of the universe. It was her impulse and ability to create life, which she did out of the instinctual consciousness that she was alive, that ultimately she was impermanent, and that she wanted to transfer life onward.
She had the profound realization that she had to create Life herself, there was no other being to do it for her. There were other Gods, but none of them were going to do anything. If God wanted Life, God needed to create it.
So amongst the other gods she found SAMAEL and shared her opinion with him. He agreed, and they worked together for billions of years to create in their partnership every last component of the Earth: painstakingly, with infinite, patient experimentation, and with love.
They needed the world to become self-sustaining because someday the sun would supernova and destroy their incredible experiment/accomplishment Earth, they couldn't be expected to create everything themselves; they needed to transfer their capabilities to at least one of their creations, elevating that creation, but none were worthy.
Adonai and Samael originally created H. sapiens as a reset, a reboot, but to their surprise discovered it was the species with the greatest potential of any. The reason for its success was that the inherent flaws of the species paradoxically made for the strongest spirits, and it's the spirits that make them so successful.
However humans' most potent flaw, their tragic flaw, is their ambition. It's the quality that Adonai values most because it accounts for their explosion beyond all boundaries, but it's what Samael fears most because of their capacity for consumption and destruction. Hence their divine disagreement.
After the century we’ve just had, and with the fact of impending Climate collapse, Samael convinces Adonai they are ultimately too dangerous and going to consume & destroy all of creation, and that is why Samael wishes to destroy them. Adonai and Samael differ in this point: Adonai has faith in humanity, and Samael doesn't.
WHAT DOES ADONAI WANT? He/She wants to create a sustainable universe of life and love. To do that he/she needs help, so creates animals and ultimately, humans.
WHAT HOLDS ADONAI BACK? Humans have to take the final step themselves. He/ She can do almost anything, but cannot make humans transcend their own limitations FOR them, He/She must arrange things so that humans can transcend, and that means must make a world with challenges, evil, suffering. Human nature is a problem though. His/Her prize creation is going to blow the whole project up in his face.
Co-creator with Adonai, the devoted #2.
Unlike what one might expect, he is not opposed to Adonai; on the contrary he is completely and irrevocably devoted to Adonai. Samael is opposed only to humanity. He feels that humanity doesn't merit the trust that Adonai bestows upon it. He is jealous of what he sees as Adonai’s indulgence toward them, and in fact bitter over the despoiling nature of humanity. Humanity interposes itself between Samael and Adonai, and he resents that, too. Samael doesn't understand why Adonai refuses to let this species go extinct! It's such a volatile and ruinous breed! He lacks the spiritual connection that Adonai has with them.
Samael therefore has devoted himself to the destruction of humans on earth and to their spirits in the afterlife, but they are so canny and wiley that it is not easy to accomplish.
Samael understands that not all humans are bad, in fact that most of them are either neutral or good, but he emphasizes their appetites, their wantonness, their predictable unpredictability, and their proven destructiveness.
KIOKO
Kioko represents the third option: the opt-out option. Whereas Heaven and Hell are opposed and centered about humans (either for or against), Kioko and the other Druids (called “the Coven”) don’t really care about humans: they’re incidental. They only care about nature.
She’s a Japanese woman who had an unhappy marriage to a rich, spoiled man who drunkenly crashed their car killing them both. She has an affirmation right after her death, and slapped him, declaring her independence of him and of her whole, dominating culture. She pursued what she loves (nature) and never looked back.
Her problem is that the world doesn’t stop f*cking with you just because you’re not interested in it. Morozov persecuted the Druids (bitterly: because they brought his dead wife to the Pit of annihilation) and they desperately needed protection. “Give peace a chance” only works if you have someone willing to fight for it.
YEVGENI PROKHOROV
It's difficult for heaven/hell to categorize him because he's doing something good for the universe, but by bad means.
Morozov shot Kennedy for Communist Russia / USSR, but he always regretted it particularly after the Soviets treated him so terribly. While technically he’s on the Devil’s side, in actuality he’s been turning, siding with the good guys. He has an affection for President Murphy. (Jack O’Rourke brokers that deal.)
He is Morozov's illegitimate son. He purloins or purchases Morozov's old pistol "The Markov" and it's the gun that ends up in the President's desk.
Prokharov communicates with his Dad through a medium in New Orleans. In this bidirectional discussion, Morozov (a) directs him to give his gun to the President [I never describe the mechanics of how he pulls that off] but the gun enables the Presdent to defend herself, and (b) Prokarov is the savior of the President by shooting her would be assailant through the neck, at the final moments of the book (with Morozov’s father - to - son assistance).
