Abusive parents have been crushing families and breaking kids as long as there have been parents, families, and kids.
I am not a writer who shies away from a topic when it pertains to me. I am open about my life and the people who affected it in a positive way or a negative. I am fully open about my abuse and the horrors that were inflicted on me as a child. Why would I turn away when talking about fathers in my new work Onslaught of Madness? Why turn away when so much conversation could be had and so much work could be done in the understanding of a father’s role and the effect that has on everyone.
Met a guy seven years ago named Chris Mostyn. Art teacher at a middle school, artist of cartoons and monsters, (you can imagine how well we got on), Christian and father. About three sessions into our friendship he handed me a book called Wild at Heart by John Eldredge. He handed me a copy and told me to read it. It was a ballsy move.
Three sessions into meeting me he diagnosed me as a fatherless kid. A man who grew up without the guiding hand of a strong man. By then I had already begun writing The Madness Wars but it was a wake-up call, a call to arms, and a call to attention. Just about every call you can have.
Fathers needed to be understood by me. I was already in the process but I looked into it anyway. What kind of effect can fatherhood have on a person? What sort of mind does it take to overcome a terrible father, and what kind of good can a great father do?
The Madness Wars is at its core about the relationship between a father and a son. Rextur’s violence is born of an abusive, manipulative, monster of a father. He is everything that goes wrong when a bad father is introduced to an impressionable child. Peter is the very epitome of the efforts of a good father and the grace that having a strong man to guide you and temper you can have. Those are your two extremes but then we can turn to Aaron and see the truth.
Aaron was raised by an abusive and horrifying father. Aaron was the target of hate and violence just as I was. When I was writing Aaron the Marked I placed all my damage in that character. I placed all my hurt from abandonment. All my years of abuse and all my rage, unplumbed depths of rage, at being abused and mistreated.
"How could you do that to me?" I asked, and I let Aaron’s story answer for me. I let all of it play out as it should. When I wrote The Madness Wars I let the fate of three nations rest on the backs of three fathers. “Let us see,” was what I said. “Let us see who will win out. What will become of the child abused, the child nurtured, and the child victimized, when not only their sanity is at stake but the fate of millions.”
For myself I had six fathers. One abusive, a nightmare of a man who tried in every way to break me and tear me apart. The second was neglectful and simply let me grow wild and dangerous. And four men picked up the pieces. Four men chose to step in and do right by me. And those four men made me the man I am today.
I dedicated Onslaught of Madness to one of those men. By the end of the series, all four will be honored and we will see what becomes of the abused child, the nurtured child, and the victimized child.
I feel like a prophet, as I have seen the end. I can tell you this, fathers matter. But even if you have been done wrong by yours, there might be hope.
