Matt Bronleewe: Illuminated
10-19-2007
by Kevan Breitinger

Many men would kick back and take it easy after accomplishing just a few of the things on Matt Bronleewe’s heavily laden plate. A founding member of Jars of Clay, he has earned numerous awards producing and co-writing albums that have sold a combined total of over 20 million copies. His songs have recently been recorded by Disney pop sensations Aly & AJ, and  American Idol finalist Kimberley Locke, among others. Bronleewe has worked with a wide array of gifted artists, including Grammy winner Michael W. Smith, international pop singer Natalie Imbruglia and Heroes star Hayden Panettiere.

But around the time of his 30^th birthday, Bronleewe began to feel an urge to expand his field of expression. “I’ve always had a desire to step out a little bit,” he shares. “But I always thought it would be in a musical format. I’m an avid reader, and when I started doing some writing, I found that I loved it and wanted to explore it more. To be quite honest,” he adds, “I really didn’t consider that I would get published or have a book for years and years. I just felt that I needed to begin the process now. So it was really a shock, and I almost felt a bit of dismay when it all happened.” Bronleewe is laughing as he says, “I almost wanted to say ‘wait, I’m not ready yet!’”

Ready or not, what ‘happened’ is Matt Bronleewe’s debut novel, “Illuminated,” already creating a stir in the marketplace.  As timely and current as his musical productions, the novel mixes frenetic pacing and technology-driven innovations with centuries old mysteries, involving the Gutenberg Bibles, ancient codes, and a few dark secret societies. The nightmare of August Adams, former arcaeobibiologist (studier of ancient Bibles) and rare book purveyor, begins on a transatlantic flight and quickly evolves into a life and death battle of wits to save his family and the world’s rarest book, the Gutenberg, from forces both evil and frighteningly ordinary.

The research alone behind a novel like “Illuminated” would be intimidating to most new writers, as Bronleewe digs deeply into the work of Johannes Gutenberg and the times of his significant accomplishment.  “This was a fictional book,” says Matt, “but I really did strive to bring as much authenticity to the history part of it as possible. The one dilemma that I found is that for every bit of history, there is someone’s alternate take on the same segment. But the great thing is that the book has brought about a lot of discussion, of talking through and looking at these alternate views of history.”

“Illuminated” contains several provocative elements, but one of them is certainly the possibility that Gutenberg himself may have deliberately hidden clues within the illustrations of the book to various mysteries. When I ask about the likelihood of such a thing, Bronleewe does not shrink back from the possibility. “It is very well documented that some of the Marginalia and some of the Illuminations, paintings within the Gutenberg Bible, were even deemed pornographic by the church, and there were other questions besides. We don’t know if these things were originated by Gutenberg or by other illustrators, who may or may not have been Christians, and may have had their own agendas.”

The mysteries of “Illuminated” are further complicated by two warring factions after the clues supposedly hidden within the Bibles, the Orders of the Dragon and the Orphans, both actual groups. Matt laughingly tells me that several reviewers credited his imagination for these groups. “But they’re actually real, and I really strove to depict them in a modern day setting but true to their originations. The Order of the Dragon came about in the late 1300s, but came into power in the early 1400s. In 1409 Emperor Sigismund declared war on the Orphans on behalf of the Order of the Dragons, and we see the beginnings of a feud which I tried to play out in a modern day setting hundreds of years later.”

The mystery deepens as Matt shares that the Orphans are no longer active, to his knowledge. “But up to a couple of months ago the Order of the Dragon had a website going. The funny thing is,’ he adds, “a few months ago I tried to look it up and haven’t been able to find it again. So I’m really curious about what’s going on with the Order currently.”

Matt describes himself as a detail-oriented person by nature, very helpful to a writer of historical fiction, but the difference in tempo between writing a book and composing music was quite another thing. “I’ve often depicted musical writing or producing as more of a sprint, while book writing for me has been much more of a marathon. I quickly realized that I was going to have to be very diligent at plugging away on a daily basis over a long period of time. That was a big adjustment,” he shares honestly, “and continues to be, to get into that head space. I think of it like a stone in a river; it doesn’t get worn down and smooth in seconds or even a day. It takes place over a long period of time. So I approached the book as doing a little polishing at a time, over a period of a year, which is what it took me to complete the book.”

Matt Bronleewe will continue his polishing work with August Adams and crew in four more installments of the Thomas Nelson fiction series. “Illuminated” is now being offered as an audio book, and in the spirit of the novel itself, Bronleewe is conducting virtual book readings and signings via “Second Life, an online society in a three dimensional world.” Find out more about the artistic adventures of prolific creator Matt Bronleewe at www.mattbronleewe.com.