The Terrible Beauty of the Evil Man

This is a work of saudade—a romantic, yearning, magical concept never captured by any one word in English. It is the search for one's most desired future through the passionate sifting of memory. A simple reading of this book reveals Beauchamp's struggle against the rigid personal conformity demanded in the society of his birth, and the intellectual and spiritual journey that led him into conflict with the dogmas of those most near to him. But while frequently engaged with religious themes, this is not a religious work. It is rather an exploration of the process of critically evaluating the philosophical and theological axioms of one's family and culture from a place of growing isolation and otherness. This story immerses the reader in the subtle workings of the human mind as it reevaluates previously held certainties. Beauchamp recreates his past in a direct sequence of memories, but frequently intrudes on the linear story-line with dream, myth, metaphor, and philosophy, revealing a second, disruptive layer in the narrative. This embedded layer of writing, this interior world of saudade, is a prosaic poetry connecting past to future in the liquid medium of the present.