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It is 1888 as I write these words. I am an old man now, scratching syllables by candlelight at an old desk in a dingy room in Whitechapel . . .
Sometimes I write of the Devil, and of his activities amongst us in London some decades ago, my connection to which may grow more clear as we proceed. But mainly I write of a man named Daniel O’Thunder, who was—who remains— the most remarkable I have ever met. . .
I may here and there have invented certain facts, but always in the service of a greater Truth. As indeed did Matthew and Mark and Luke and John—and every single word they wrote was Gospel.
This, then, is my Book of Daniel. In writing it—in telling you the tale of Daniel O’Thunder, and his deadly Enemy—I am of course telling the tale of myself as well. And to tell my story we must begin where it all began to go so wrong.
"Marvellous from the first paragraph." --Globe and Mail
"...A terrific, fast-moving narrative." --The Guardian
"Weir's outlandish take is a top-shelf page-turner." --Publishers Weekly
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How Daniel O’Thunder Came To Be Written
In the early spring of 2008, I received an email from Chris Labonte, who had been a highly gifted student of mine back in the early 1990s, when I had done a two-year stint teaching screenwriting in the UBC Creative Writing Department. We had stayed in touch over the years, and Chris was familiar with my work as a dramatist. Now he was emailing to let me know that he was heading up a new line of fiction as Literary Acquiring Editor at Douglas & McIntyre, and to ask: had I ever considered writing a novel? I replied: funny you should mention that…
I had wanted to write a novel for years. In fact, I had been jotting notes on one particular idea, off and on, for a quarter of a century. I had indeed taken a run at the first forty pages a year or so earlier, before being sucked back into the vortex of my screen projects.
Chris asked me to send him a couple of sentences describing the nub of the idea, so I did. He emailed back to say that he was intrigued, and suggested we meet for coffee. We got together and spent a splendid couple of hours discussing writing, our families, the world in general and this idea in particular. At the end of the meeting, I expected him to assure me that he’d be happy to read the manuscript if I ever finished it, after which we’d shake hands and return to our respective corners of the real world. Instead, he said: “Okay, I’ll get a contract to you on Monday. Can you show me a first draft by Christmas?”
There are times when the universe whacks you with a plank. If I was ever going to write the novel, evidently now was the time. I retrieved my jaw from the floor, and said: yup.
The idea that became Daniel O’Thunder first glimmered when I was a graduate student at King’s College, London, and found myself mulling a vague notion about the tortured antagonism between a failed evangelist and a Devil who was feeling diminished and disoriented by the modern world. I’m not sure where the idea actually came from, since I never do – I just wake up one morning and realize an idea is there. In this case, I presume it had to do with my being a kind of Lapsed Anglican with foggy spiritual questions and a hobbyist’s interest in New Testament scholarship.
A number of years later I began to realize that the evangelist lived in London (my favourite city), during the Victorian era (Dickens happens to be my favourite novelist), and that his story connected somehow with the world of theatre (a lifelong love). About three years ago I suddenly discovered that my evangelist was also a bare-knuckle prizefighter, which meant that my fascination with boxing history had plunged into the mix. It subsequently turned out that he was Irish. How that happened, I’m not sure.
The first draft was written in a seven-month blitz, and then rewritten over a feverish four months (day-shift in the basement, followed by an evening-shift at the coffee shop, since the trick is to persuade yourself that you’re taking a break and have gone out to relax all by yourself in a corner with your laptop).
It almost killed me. I had the time of my life.
Synopsis
Set in the 1850s in London, England, Daniel O’Thunder interweaves the voices of several narrators to tell the story of a troubled but charismatic prize-fighting evangelist who challenges none other than the Devil to a battle in the ring.
A former pugilist with a right fist known as “The Hammer of Heaven,” O’Thunder disappeared for years before resurfacing as a crusading street preacher. He pursues a life in Christ, serving those in need, whether they be poor, homeless or in need of guidance. But on London’s dark streets, an evil presence is wreaking havoc and throwing into peril the lives of O’Thunder’s most vulnerable souls.
The novel inhabits the world of the theatre, the criminal underworld and the world of bare-knuckle prizefighting, then shifts to the wild west of North America, where O’Thunder meets his ultimate opponent in the desert of the B.C. Interior.
Reviews
"'Dickensian' is an adjective too often misused in describing books set in Victorian England. It is, however, the perfect word for this superb novel, nominated for the Commonwealth Prize....Marvellous from the first paragraph." --Globe and Mail
"This thumping serving of early Victoriana dishes up some memorable characters: a not-so-little Nell, Jaunty the slippery entrepreneur, decent-hearted journalist William Piper, sinister Lord Sculthorpe and seemingly innocuous Jack Hartright. Towering above them all is Daniel O'Thunder, a former soldier and ex-prizefighter turned evangelist whose inspired preaching amid the fetid slums of the East End makes him a legend. But another figure, 'vain as an ageing tragedian,' vies with Daniel: the Devil himself. Ian weir tantalizingly incorporates clues as to his possible human identity with a terrific, fast-moving narrative." --The Guardian
"...the Devil has taken many guises in Western literature over the years. Until Ian Weir cast him into Victorian England, though, never has the dark one been asked to step into the ring...A knock-out debut." --National Post
"The battle between the great Hammer of Heaven and the evil stalking him climaxes in a fight that will leave readers breathless. This robust historical novel by an award-winning Canadian screenwriter will captivate fans of Sarah Waters and Charles Dickens." --Library Journal
"In this delicious jumble of a novel, Weir has created an epic hero....Drenched in filthy Thames water and coiffed in mutton chops, Weir's outlandish tale is a top-shelf page-turner." --Publishers Weekly
"If one unreliable narrator is enough to skew a book toward the fantastical, imagine the twists generated by four! ...it’s a sign of [Weir's] sure command that all are engaging, even when spinning bald-faced lies or subtle prevarications…This is wonderful stuff." --Georgia Straight
"Weir’s plot steps smartly, and the language crackles with the immediacy of shifting first-person voices… There are murders, rapes, hangings, prizefights, a city-wide riot, and lots of thrilling escapes." --Quill and Quire
"Ambitious in scope and structure, the book speaks in pitch-perfect Victorian diction through a wide range of characters to relate the ultimate-stakes quarrel between the pugilist preacher Daniel O’Thunder and his ultimate adversary: The Devil Himself." --Vancouver Magazine
"Laced with blood thunder, sex, murder, rape, mayhem and miracles, Ian Weir's first novel is about good versus evil…from the outset, even if we haven’t read the authors biography we know we are in skilled hands." --BC Bookworld