The Death of Kevin Frye

The Death of Kevin Frye- The Novel












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The Death of Kevin Frye
By Coleen Frazer-Hambrick

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"...Victor slept long and hard and in the morning he awoke to the sound and smell of bacon sizzling and coffee brewing. 


Going into the kitchen, he put his arms around Jazz, slid his hands across her stomach and held her to himself, kissing her neck.

When he turned her around, he was alarmed to find her crying. “Jazz, what’s wrong?” 
A few minutes went by before she was able to speak. She sat down and sobbed until she could gather herself together. When she felt strong enough to speak, she found she could only say two words, “Last night.” Her eyes filled with tears, her throat constricted, sobs replaced words...."

One of the things I’ve found in writing is that you must be very careful of how you arrange your words. Grammatically, the sentence may be correct, but when you read it back, you realize you have made a blunder that can be very easily misconstrued. 

Such was the case in this scene. I originally had Victor smelling sausage. So, after Jazz cried and he apologized, I wrote, “they held each other closely as the sausage burned.” 

When I read this back out loud to myself, I knew I needed to change this scene to bacon. 
Fortunately I am not the only writer that has experienced this strange phenomenon. I once read of another author whose character was cold while she sat on the couch, “Suzan pulled the throw up to her chin.” On the surface this sentence is fine. Read it out loud. I would definitely change that sentence.

Ah! The writer’s life. 






The Death of Kevin Frye

By Coleen Frazer-Hambrick

Victor followed Jim into the kitchen. The preacher pulled hot tea and two mugs from the cabinets. He heated it in the microwave, and led Victor to his office. 

“Sit down, here.” Jim handed him the mug, sat and waited.

“This is good. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” Jim replied.

“You said someone called you to come to the church to pray. Who called you?” Victor asked.”

“The Holy Spirit. Do you know about him?”

“Jazz mentioned him once, I think. He spoke to you?”

“Yeah, but not with a voice anyone else could hear.

Victor quietly sipped the hot tea, staring at the floor....

...“Preacher, you say God is all knowing, but also say that he was sad when Christ was killed. You say Christ came back to life. How sad could God have really been if God knew he was going to come back to life?”

“I can’t pretend to have the answers for you. That’s where faith kicks in.”

“Blind faith. Yeah, I know. I can’t understand how you can sit there and say we just have to have faith. Faith discounts intellect completely. You can’t have both.”

“I have to disagree. God gave us our intellect, but he didn’t make us as intelligent as he is. Many things will always be a mystery to us. We’re not all knowing, but the intellect we do have should go hand in hand with our faith. Without intellect, faith is no longer faith but superstition. Superstition is synonymous with fear.”

“But through the reading and understanding of the Bible we use our intellect. God opens up windows of understanding that help us see why we believe what we do. Through God’s Word, God speaks to our hearts and brings together our faith and intellect.”

 “True faith acknowledges our weakness. True faith asks God questions and asks him for the wisdom to understand the answers.”

“Now, back to your question: How could God know pain if he knew Jesus would be victorious? I’ll admit to you right now that I’ve wondered that myself. I finally came to the conclusion that I just have to accept with faith that he did experience sorrow and pain. I can also accept, with faith, that God will help me see the answer to this question in his own good time.”

Writing a novel is much like reading a book: you don’t know the end until you read the last page. With this novel, there have been many things happen that were totally beyond my knowledge or my faith as I wrote about Victor’s struggles.

The excerpt above is an example of my own questions and journey toward a deeper faith. For many years I have asked God the question I had Victor ask of Jim. I wrote this conversation, not knowing what the answer would be, and not thinking the answer would come at another point in this work. Amazingly the answer did come in a way neither my characters nor I expected.

I have learned much in the making of the movie based on my novel. One of the things I’ve learned is that you can’t transfer everything to a movie that you have in a novel. The scene quoted above had to have some modification, but the answer does come later on in the movie. Keep your ears and heart open and I hope you enjoy the movie as much as I’ve enjoyed playing a small role in bringing it to you.