(As stated in text message)
Q: “Ending was a bit confusing for me. The collision of Owen and Matthew after the death of Slack in particular, mainly bc I thought they existed in different realities.”
A: Yeah the ending is difficult. Basically what’s happening is reality is flipping. So far it’s been Slack’s world, and he’s been real and Owen’s been a figment of his imagination. Slack dies at the end, and Owen becomes real and Slack is essentially confined to Hell, where nothing is real. From the end of Slack's Ballad until the Epilogue, they’re both dead, in a Near Death Experience. All of Castor & Pollux is a process of them separating. The novel starts with just Slack—then he splits with his own soul (Owen), and they keep coming farther and farther apart until they’re completely separate at the end, and Slack (without his soul) is doomed to unreality while the soul itself (Owen) is in hyperreality. This hyperreality where Owen is living will be the setting for the sequel, Ekstasis (think Ecstasy, it’s a Greek word for an experience out of self). By the end, they’ll become one again. I had already written Book III (Ekstasis) and worked this out, but I actually don’t like how I did it and am not sure how I’m going to bring them back together again, but the sequel will probably start from first-person Owen. I bet I won’t write it for 10 years.
Also, Maria/Mary is the bridge between the two realities. So was Rebecca, the only other person who could really perceive Owen and Slack at the same time. That’s why Maria is the one to tell Owen the news about Slack. The rosary and the pen are basically the symbols of reality switching, authorship switching, from Slack to Owen. I don’t expect readers to catch all of this but I just hope they’re able to read the ending and let it get into their subconscious.
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