Urban Saint is Ken McCarty Bird's first work of fiction. What Richard Wright's social commentary in Native Son was meant for society in the mid-twentieth century, Urban Saint is apt to be for the socio-religious society in the twenty-first century; with timeless themes that will surely resonate for many, many years to come. Saint or sinner; both are players in this saga of the lovelorn recounting the tragedy and triumph of Victoria and Gabriel's relationship that is imperiled by addiction. The romance between them blossoms into a resplendent nuptial, the nuptial gradually and incrementally losing its petals until what remains becomes volatile and guarded. This would soon send the relationship into a tailspin when tragedy strikes. The events escalate into a terrifying climax when one of them, a healthy psychologist with feet firmly planted in the church, career, and community shockingly succumbs to a stroke that leads to a coma. On one level this is the emergent panic button pushed, the triage in the emergency room, the ICU's protocol around the clock in desperation to save life, as one slips deeper and deeper into unconsciousness. And yet on another level, somewhere near heaven's gate, the edge of eternity comes the divine caricature where all that is discerned through the five senses or the lack of it, is the unknown factor of the spirit to be embraced; where one is able to receive all that is presented within the minute parameters of earthly existence: reality perceived in flashes of colors the mere semblance of peach, orange, crimson, and a deep blue; the language that is speechless, the wonders that are unspeakable, for no tongue can express it better than the language of permeation -all things within and without like an all-encompassing spirit; the perception being crisp, vivid, eloquent and bright. While the ICU staff diligently tries to save what is left a prayerful family vigil waits in the chasm of uncertainty and with an inferno of questions: What kind of future is left for the one who has sunk so deeply into alcoholism that one is like a prisoner at the beck and call of Ole Man Liquor, and whose soul seems to be lost to the point of being an unwitting accomplice in Satan's schemes? And for the other, what chance of a future is left when the existence remains precarious at best -one's hold on humanity slipping away, hanging by a thread to dear life on earth, while heaven seems to beckon. This is the enigma, suspense, and intrigue of Urban Saint.
