The Crucifixion

The Crucifixion is my first novel.  It begins with a vision—“The Dream”—I had in a little bathroom where I spent a night on the beach in Mozambique in the 90s, seeking shelter from a storm.  In writing it, I uncovered, to a certain extent, the personal mythology in which I was living as a young man seeking the diverse colors of creation in a black and white world.

While dealing with such issues as race, violence towards women, and religion, The Crucifixion is a modern American myth, following the classical, archetypal, mythic patterns of departure and return.  In reclaiming the mythic patterns of Christianity, it reframes the Old Testament in terms of the flight of African Americans from the Deep South during the Great Migration and the New Testament as the struggle for meaning in the modern, urban America.  It is the story of a young man who is lost and alone, and must return to the city of his birth to find his place in the world.  Ultimately, the man must awaken from the urban nightmare in which the world is “black and white” to realize that he and the city are embedded in a world of living color.

“Theodore Richards’ The Crucifixion is a narrative composed of the overlapping orbits of souls passing through the force fields of faith, belief and judgment.  The reader moves through the dreams, experiences and memories of the characters, as trials, trespass and prophecy carve out a shared revelation.   Hearts and minds flow at a swift pace, crisscrossing the lines that divide us and the lines that connect us all. The Crucifixion is fresh yet familiar, clear yet complex, modern and mythologic.”

J. K. McDowell, author of Night, Mystery & Light

The Crucifixionis available in various bookstores, Amazon, and on Homebound Publications. To order a copy, click here. Homebound will make a donation to The Chicago Wisdom Project for each copy purchased during the month of April.