Waking the Messiah

Lynne Perras teaches communication arts at the University of Calgary.

The heroine of Soper-Cook’s powerful first novel is Moriah, a young
woman who has been detained in a mental institution for the brutal
murder of her father. Early on in the novel, she notes: “I never
realized that I was mad. I never realized that perhaps the most
necessary string that holds the mind together would snap, and my
essential Self would fly apart into a million fractal pieces. ... I have
moments of lucidity when I speak as myself and I remember who I was. Not
often.”

What follows is an exploration of Moriah’s madness—its nature, its
depth, its cause, and even the question of whether or not it exists.
Through flashbacks, we relive Moriah’s childhood and identify the
source of her psychological problems: her Christian fundamentalist
father who terrorized and controlled his wife and two daughters with
physical and emotional assaults. Back in the present, the damaged Moriah
exhibits other “selves” and claims to have been Jesus Christ in a
past life. She begins talking in an ancient language, arousing the
interest of Joshua Stiller, her psychiatrist.

Many questions arise from his study of Moriah: Was she really Jesus
Christ in a past life? Does she suffer from multiple personality
syndrome? Or is she only faking insanity? Stiller becomes more and more
entranced by Moriah until he crosses the line separating therapist and
patient, and Moriah becomes a victim once more. Soper-Cook’s rich,
moving, and at times shocking novel is enriched by the thought-provoking
questions it raises about Christianity, the medical profession, the
psychiatric community, mental illness, and the meaning of love and
spirituality.