All That is Sinister in Small Towns

When I set out to write what would eventually become my second novel, A Step Past Darkness, I knew I wanted it to be one of those books where place functioned as a main character. I wanted it to be a mixture of 90s small-town suburbia that would feel very familiar to many readers combined with some more unusual—bordering on otherworldly—aspects. In the first case, there’s the feature of everyone knowing everybody, the football team that won the state championship, the complicated social stratification and behavior to enforce it, which back then we didn’t call bullying or relational aggression. I made a facsimile of my own hometown, but wanted to super charge it with some elements that would enhance the creepy vibes of the book. 

I’m not sure when I first heard of Centralia, Pennsylvania, but clearly it stuck with me: a town where an underground mine fire has been burning since 1962. It was a coal mining town that dates back to the 1800s, and I was fascinated with the idea of an entire community sitting on top of a labyrinth of paths left by miners underground. There are debates about how the fire began, if it was an intentional fire intended to clean up the town landfill, or the careless dumping of hot coals in the wrong location, or a fire spread from elsewhere. Whatever the cause, the fire went underground, taking advantage of pockets of oxygen and coal seams. There were multiple attempts to put the fire out, but underground mine fires are both very difficult and expensive to extinguish. For some time, people continued to live in Centralia until it became untenable. There were toxic fumes, roads cracking apart, sinkholes appearing as the ground collapsed after the coal beneath it burned away. Virtually everyone left and buildings were demolished (perhaps, even then, people were aware that, despite deadly gases, a ghost town would attract urban explorers). 

In my novel, the small town of Wesley Falls was historically a coal mining town with a neighboring sister city, both of which mined the neighboring mountain, Devil’s Peak, for coal. A mine fire breaks out in the sister city, eventually creating a ghost town, while Wesley Falls is saved by a Bureau of Mines attempt to prevent the underground mine fire from spreading. I researched how mine fires can be stopped and one method was to fill empty spaces with slurry to prevent the fire from creeping forward. Such fires are environmental disasters, considering the gases that are released, and according to Time magazine, they are currently burning on every continent but Antarctica. In my fictional world, despite the danger of entering the “safe,” fire-free part of the abandoned coal mine, of course this is a space where high school kids would want to explore and inevitably get into trouble in. 

Another critical “character” in my novel is Golden Praise, the local megachurch that dominates the town. I had no megachurch in my tiny hometown but had grown up with an abnormally keen interest in religion. I went from being the weird kid who read the Apocryphal books of the Bible in high school, to a student who minored in religious studies, focusing on the origins of the Abrahamic religions and Eastern religious philosophy. Though not religious, I became fascinated with what I thought of as “church” becoming something entirely different in our society. Church, as someone who went to Catholic school for many years, was varnished pews, men in somber robes, readings from the Bible, and if we were well behaved, hymns that were particularly popular. With the advent of American megachurches, we have not just an entirely new philosophy on what a religious service can be, but also some interesting perspectives on theology. 

Megachurches can be as “small” as 2,000 worshipers, but are sometimes massive arenas holding as many as 20,000-40,000 people, complete with state-of-the-art sound systems and stage lighting. You may have seen Hillsong in the news due to its popularity with a number of celebrities; it has a younger and hipper vibe than more old fashioned notions of what services should be. There are also a variety of sexual assault allegations associated with Hillsong (and a variety of allegations on different topics as well), which to be honest, doesn’t surprise me. Large organizations with hierarchical structures where lots of money changes hands tend to find such scandals. Lakewood Church in Houston, led by Joel Osteen, was in the news during Hurricane Harvey in 2017, when people called out the church for not opening its doors as a shelter. It took immense public pressure for the church to ultimately do so. Casual perusal of the topic of Osteen’s net worth has it somewhere between 40 and 180 million which is not a contradiction to his teachings at all; Osteen preaches “prosperity gospel”—the belief that faith and prayer can make you rich (which has certain implications about poverty). In recent years, fellow prosperity gospel preacher Kenneth Copeland (net worth circa 750 million) called upon his followers to donate to fund a Gulfstream private jet. But Copeland isn’t ungrateful for the wealth that has blessed him: after purchasing the jet, he thanked his donors and noted it needed another 2.5 million in upgrades. 

I became fascinated with religion being mixed in with financial corruption, an ideology of wealth, and the notion of a pastor not being a humble servant of God, but something akin to a rock star. What would it be like to be in a town dominated by a huge establishment like this, and what would it be like for the people in this town who weren’t believers? 

About A Step Past Darkness:

There’s something sinister under the surface of the idyllic, suburban town of Wesley Falls, and it’s not just the abandoned coal mine that lies beneath it. The summer of 1995 kicks off with a party in the mine where six high school students witness a horrifying crime that changes the course of their lives.

When they realize that they can’t trust anyone but each other, they begin to investigate what happened on their own. As tensions escalate in town to a breaking point, the six make a vow of silence, bury all their evidence, and promise to never contact each other again. Their plan works – almost.

Twenty years later, Jia calls them all back to Wesley Falls–Maddy has been murdered, and they are the only ones who can uncover why. But to end things, they have to return to the mine one last time.