Tales from the Jail

The storytellers in this novel are prisoners and their visitors. They tell stories of their lives and others-stories they have heard, told, and what leads to their incarceration. In prison, they question their faith, challenge the most rooted religious doctrines, examine their conscience, and reconnect with their spirituality. In jail, some have found God; some have rejected him.

Errol Francis, in his fictional tale of when the devil came to town, relates his chilling experience when Lucifer visited his native town of San Marco. 

He came to set the record straight with his worshipers-learn why they worship him, confront his accusers, know why they make him responsible for their sins, and intimidate non-believers who do not believe in his existence at all.

Simon is a single man who took a homeless cat home to soon realize that the kitten embodies the spirit of his dead mother who became a poltergeist to haunt him.

Kate, who visited her sister Emilie in jail, recounts the mysterious tale of a cow, jumping off the slaughtering table screaming, "God have mercy on me," causing a riot. The cow killed a butcher in the marketplace.  

Vietnam war veteran Walt narrates his favorite fictional story about slavery in Saint Domingue, which is about twin brothers, Hector and Homer, who arrived in Saint Domingue as slaves. Hector met an untimely death. Homer avenged his brother then foiled the French settlers when he introduced them to an addictive cocktail drink.

Vincent Manchester is a racist who sent a young black man to prison for a crime he did not commit. Sara Manchester, coerced by her father, accused his black friend of sexual assault. Vincent Maznchester was never told the truth about his mulatto half siblings in Jamaica. Martha Manchester is a racist who went to the extreme to keep her white children apart from their mulatto half brothers.

Eli is a seventy-year-old man who describes a miracle that happened to a girl called Sadia, rejected by society because of her disfigurement. After a rainfall in the city of Capernaum, USA, Sadia was cured.  

Ilda, a woman prisoner, remembers how her friend Fanny was heartbroken after seeing her presumably dead husband alive in an Indian village in the state of Sonora, Mexico. The reality sets in for Fanny. Kaleb is alive, but he has a young Indian wife and a baby girl, and he seemed happy. 

Peggy Armstrong is a fugitive who finally confesses to a priest in the search for redemption. Amelia Armstrong is a mother living with guilt for not helping her daughter keeping her out-of-wedlock baby and for believing that she was guilty of sabotage.