Mary’s Mountain, my novelette, is FREE on Kindle June 27 thru July 1. It’s a short read, so I hope you’ll take me up on my offer, and I would very much appreciate a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble!
Mary’s Mountain is a story about Tolerance taken to the extreme. It is Paul Dunaway’s struggle to re-shape his affluent but joyless life, while the opposing forces in the out-of-control, politically correct America he helped to create, now threaten to take him down.
A description of the infamous Institute of Tolerance found in the novelette: Today, inside its progenies, rigid rooms are covered in fiddle-faddle flowers and sentimental hearts beating warm and fuzzy pizazz into nearly every state of the union. Outside each building, a neon sign blinks: Tolerance Today, Tolerance Tomorrow, Tolerance Forever! The signs have fingers, virtual reality, to motion the people inside. The signs move. The lights move. And the people inside are moved, to tolerate anything.
Mary’s Mountain is somewhat futuristic, but not entirely. Already our history is being revised, and we accept it. Already Truth is being debunked, and we swallow it–especially if what is replacing Truth agrees with our personal opinions, or tickles our indulgences. This is dangerous. Already our religious faith is being challenged. Already our right to hear the truth on television and social media is being meddled with. Already, our country’s enemies are at our throat, and yes, crossing our border. And some of them actually mean us great harm.
Why don’t we fight back against any of this? Many of us don’t want to be labeled intolerant. Except intolerance has nothing to do with keeping our country safe. Keeping our country safe is called plain Common Sense.
Many of us have become tolerant cowards, we have become tolerant of coarseness, we have become tolerant of laziness, we have become so tolerant that whenever we are fed lies by social media, the entertainment industry, and the fake news, we gobble it all up like a favorite dessert.
We are supposed to be flesh and blood human beings, on the lookout for ourselves and others; but instead we’re becoming sponges, soggy with wrong information– when what we need to be are heroes.
We once considered wrong as an action against the commandment of God. Now many of those wrongs have been propagandized to seem right. And worse, we’d better put up with it, or else be called bigots, or racists, or religious zealots. In other words, we are being asked to tolerate the intolerable.
What is honest tolerance anyway? And what is intolerance?
Bishop Fulton J. Sheen said: “The important point here is this: Tolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons. Tolerance applies to the erring; intolerance to the error…America is suffering not so much from intolerance, which is bigotry, as it is from tolerance, which is indifference to truth and error, and a philosophical nonchalance that has been interpreted as broad-mindedness.”
G.K Chesterton said: “Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.”
The question in Mary’s Mountain, is whether Paul Dunaway will continue to indulge in his so-called broad-mindedness, or return to his honest convictions, enough to become a white-knight for America.
Here is one review of the novelette by a wonderful author, Jeannie Ewing:
Kaye Hinckley’s novella “Mary’s Mountain” was so captivating that I read it in one sitting without putting the book down once. It has apocalyptic flavors, much like the “1982” or “Brave New World” or “Animal Farm” type stories from decades prior. But the novelty of Hinckley’s tale is refreshing, because she portrays a society that embraces liberalism in such a way that traditionalists are ostracized and even banned. She foretells what our nation could look like politically, socially, and morally in a frighteningly and chillingly realistic portrayal of how technology plays into the degradation of an entire generation.
But the hope lies in Mary’s Mountain, Mary of course being the Mother of God. Mary’s presence is visible and constant on this mountain, which offers light to believers who have not forsaken their faith, despite persecution and threat of punishment. Some are visionaries, while others simply stay close to the mountain, pay her homage or retreat there as pilgrims in order to find refreshment and spiritual rejuvenation from their daily plight.
“Mary’s Mountain” follows the conversion of everyman through the character of Paul Dunaway, who is born into the Faith but loses it shamelessly through the enticements of the world: money, lust, power. Then he eventually finds his way back to God through Mary’s Mountain, his former home.
Hinckley is a fantastic writer who uses vivid imagery through the written word for character and plot development. I was duly impressed with the power of this story in such a short novella. Brilliantly done!
I hope you’ll read Mary’s Mountain while it’s FREE this week, and let me know what you think.
Translating a World on the Edge 