Kissing The HagThis story takes place in the span of one night, while Julien, the main character, is working the graveyard shift at a homeless shelter in downtown Boston. His life has come to a stand-still since the suicide of his youngest brother Mark: He’s quit his job, moved out of his apartment, isolated himself from family and friends. Throughout the course of the evening Julien takes readers on a dark, sometimes mystical, and sometimes terrifying course as he traverses the dim caverns and blind curves of the human spirit via flashbacks and interactions with shelter guests throughout the night.
There is Celtic Mythology woven into the theme, as well as subtle, but powerful imagery of the theater, and fire, both central to the book’s motif. Before daylight Julien will begin to get his life moving again. Along with the timeless issues of alcoholism and mental illness, the story also deals with teen-suicide, which is presently of epidemic proportion in this country. The story finishes with an intensely positive message, while using mythology, Christian dogma, street smarts, poetry, New Age-drunk talk, and mad men’s ravings, along with simple human compassion as the springboards for a deeply spiritual experience, told through a spiritually-hip, but jaded and disillusioned protagonist. |
"Kissing The Hag is a dark night of the soul, a harrowing trip into the battered heart of the narrator… Mr. Quigley does not, as so easily and haplessly occurs books these days, leave us there cold and shivering. He brings us through this night, and into the day…with grace, where new life and forgiveness abide.”
Brett Lot, author of Jewel, and The Hunt Club
"You should consider looking up the fiction of writer Timothy Quigley. It's wonderful work, buoyant and lively and crackling with fascinating energies and tensions.”