Behind The Locked Door

In the 1970s, Eric Martin, a young attorney, is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Eric finds hospitals and traditional treatments insensitive and ineffective, so he decides to gamble on an unproven but popular alternative: Laetrile, legally available to him only at a clinic in Mexico. While there, he befriends an unconventional Catholic priest who introduces him to the mysterious world of spirits and shamanic healers. In a dreamworld populated with characters real and imagined, Eric discovers a life he'd formerly ignored in order to focus only on things of practical importance. In the course of treatment both at the clinic and by a curandera in a remote mountain village, Eric threads his way among gangsters, drug dealers, corrupt politicians, greedy charlatans, and a principled scientist. In time, Eric's health improves, and he begins a new and surprising future. This remarkable story shifts between the ordinary and the extraordinary as it raises age-old existential contrasts--dream versus reality, optimism versus nihilism, and the spiritual versus materialist view of humanity.

“David Jones is one of the great thinkers and writers of northern California. He pours his intellect and life experience into Behind the Locked Door. Run, don’t walk, to devour it, and be ready to be consumed.”
—Gary Evans, former World Bank economist and nancial advisor to the Republic of Poland

“It requires exceptional skill to twist a thought to express a sensation, a tender emotion. David has that skill... to create a mood, a reality, a truth made from illusions.”
—James Maxwell, painter, sculptor, graphic designer, and author of My Ghosts

“Jones has delighted us for years with his blog www.thinkinthemorning. com. Now, in his engaging first work of fiction, he takes readers to Mexico as a young man searches for the gift of healing.”
—Katy M. Tahja, author of An Eclectic History of Mendocino County, 1852–2002

“What a treat! I’ve followed David’s blog and travels, and now am delighted to be able to fully immerse myself in the richness of his imagination, truth telling, and talent. Hurray—and more, please!”
—Susan B. Wood, artist and “teller” of the secrets of an amazing, aging, single, woman artist

“David Jones has chosen a difficult subject: the story of a desperate ‘everyman’ grasping at any straw (Laetrile, in this case) in hopes of surviving his incurable cancer. Set in Mexico, the novel is liberally sprinkled with indigenous mysticism and surreal interludes, enhancing the story and helping make Behind the Locked Door a wonderful read.”
—Gil Gevins, author of 1967: The Autumn of Post-Coital Despair

“In this genre-bending ode to his much-loved older brother, who died of cancer at a young age, David Jones has imagined an inner and outer life for a dying man. Imagine a gritty tale of intrigue, international crime and corruption and the harshest, cruelest, most savage details of high-tech medical reality merged with the slippery, elusive, shimmering world of shamans, visions, totems, and magical realism, a tale populated with a full cast of characters, some of whom—gangsters, hucksters, crooked politicians—resemble walking, talking cancer cells, while others—a native healer, an obsessively principled eccentric scientist, a sweet, beautiful love interest, an enlightened Catholic priest—put us in mind of powerful immune cells channeling the primal forces of life. The reader ponders the age-old philosophical question: Do we dream that we are awake, or are we awake when we are dreaming? And is there a difference?”
—Eleanor Cooney, author of Death in Slow Motion and Midnight in Samara

“From a dying brother’s letter of despair and hope, David Jones creates a harrowing mix of humanity and inhumanity; love and terror; medical madness and mirages of miracles. The searing journey the author imagines for his brother compels readers to confront profound questions of how life is best lived and death best met. "
—Jeffrey Amestoy, Former Chief Justice, Vermont Supreme Court and author, Slavish Shore: The Odyssey of Richard Henry Dana Jr.