Miracle, Vol. 49

Leo Dubray’s Miracle offers an unvarnished account of the day and nightlife of a beat cop, but Miracle is much more than a cop story. It is a huge and troubling vision of contemporary America as seen through the focused, rapid-fire view of a trained observer.

This is an innovative, emotionally powerful evocation of the other America—a devastated suburban landscape of decayed shopping malls and boarded-up schools. It is a world of vivid and unforgettable people, both cops and civilians, who destroy the urban world and the lives around them, but who are sometimes astonishing in their redemption. The troubling landscape of Miracle is dark yet intensely lyrical, beautiful even in its darkness.

It is this darkness that Matthew, an American Indian mixed-blood police officer, knows intimately. Through his years on the force, he has developed steely nerves and shrewd negotiation skills. Every day he encounters moral and cultural decay. He responds by striving to protect those he believes are, or should be, innocent. Even so, he is time and again slammed with the helplessness of arriving seconds too late.

It is only the little miracles of survival in any given day that keep the cycle going—those bittersweet miracles that stand the world on its head by proving that faith in the unbelievable is the essence of life.

Leo Dubray's Miracle offers an unvarnished account of the day and nightlife of a beat cop, but Miracle is much more than a cop story. It is a huge and troubling vision of contemporary America as seen through the focused, rapid-fire view of a trained observer.

This is an innovative, emotionally powerful evocation of the other America—a devastated suburban landscape of decayed shopping malls and boarded-up schools. It is a world of vivid and unforgettable people, both cops and civilians, who destroy the urban world and the lives around them, but who are sometimes astonishing in their redemption. The troubling landscape of Miracle is dark yet intensely lyrical, beautiful even in its darkness.

It is this darkness that Matthew, an American Indian mixed-blood police officer, knows intimately. Through his years on the force, he has developed steely nerves and shrewd negotiation skills. Every day he encounters moral and cultural decay. He responds by striving to protect those he believes are, or should be, innocent. Even so, he is time and again slammed with the helplessness of arriving seconds too late.

It is only the little miracles of survival in any given day that keep the cycle going—those bittersweet miracles that stand the world on its head by proving that faith in the unbelievable is the essence of life.

Leo Dubray, a former police officer in San Jose, California, lives in Klamath Falls, Oregon. He is Assistant Professor of English at Oregon Institute of Technology in Klamath Falls.