Fal-net > Tierra Del Fuego / October 1996 summary

October 1996 Summary

Here is the original pitch for Tierra Del Fuego, a one page summary dated 24 October 1996.

Tierra Del Fuego ("Land of Fire") is the story of one man’s journey into a self-designed delusion. Julian Crisp, a rich, playboy orphan nicknamed "Batman" by his friends for his anonymous philanthropy, lives in the big city, surrounded by the large buildings that bring him comfort. Unable to truly be alone since he was orphaned in a fire that consumed his mother when he was just three years old, he discovers a new facet to his life, one of destiny and religious messiahhood.

Julian receives strange letters in the mail from a woman known only to him as Mary around the same time he starts to receive strange—possibly self-inflicted—wounds, similar to the stigmata of Christ. As he enters the wondrous world the wounds give him, Julian trades in his radical animal and environmental rights beliefs for the new religious obsession he gains.

Mary is a disciple of The Preacher, a mysterious guru who may know more than he’s willing to disclose about Julian’s unknown paternity. Under his tutelage, Mary, in a series of telephone calls and mailings, convinces Julian of what he already knows—that the world is crumbling around him—and what he does not: that he is the one to save it.

Over time, an encounter with a young cancer patient renews Julian’s optimism in the world and prompts him to answer Mary’s call. Julian gets a new obsession and sheds himself of past problems as he begins his new life as a self-proclaimed religious messiah. A final encounter in the California desert with Mary and The Preacher brings the brooding, melancholy Julian to his final transformation as he sets out to single-handedly convert the masses to his beliefs and meet his destiny.