The Biography of a Novel—Part 1

Except for one posting on the death of my friend Pat Lassonde, I haven’t posted for five months. Vision and health problems, as well as the death of another close friend, filled those days.

Also, I’ve been preparing to publish a historical novel—The Reluctant Spy. I spent April completing the final draft and July proofreading the pdf.  I probably won’t be done with that task until mid-August. My hope is to announce the novel’s publication through a posting sometime in late August or early September.

Today I’m starting a series of postings on what I call the “biography” of the novel on which I’ve worked, off and on, for twenty-two years. That’s a long time to spend with characters in another country and another time. I’ve come to know them as I do my friends—their likes and dislikes, their foibles, their dark nights of depression and they brilliant days of realizing possibilities.

I’d like to share with you my journey with the novel’s main characters: Jonathan and Daniel; Chaviva and Davi; Yeshua and Benjamin; Rebecca and Miriam; Judas and John. I want also to share how the the storyline changed over time and how various characters entered the story as the plot revealed itself to me.

Let’s begin the bio today with an explanation of when the idea first came to me to write something about Yeshua, whom most of you know as Jesus of Nazareth. It all began with exercise. That is, while living in Stillwater, Minnesota, I exercised fairly regularly. For several years I rode my bicycle for 10 miles out into the country each weekday morning; on the weekends, I biked 15 miles. Then I had a rather serious accident that demolished the bicycle and landed me in the hospital for a few days.

Lacking nerve, I gave up biking and began to walk. In the beginning, I walked on the streets of what is known as the South Hill of Stillwater. Ultimately, I walked an hour a day, five days a week. Given the stumbling blocks of curbs and dogs, I soon realized that walking in the nearby cemetery—Fairview—would be safer and quieter as I listened to novels on my Walkman. 

It was in that cemetery that The Reluctant Spy was born.

Here’s what happened: During the early evening of a July day in 1997, I was walking in Fairview when suddenly I began to talk out loud. Sentences just came forth. Not willed; spontaneously. Freely given for me to accept—or not. I listened to those words and realized that the speaker was Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist in the Christian faith documents. He was saying who Yeshua was for him.

Not really understanding what all this meant—I wasn’t envisioning twenty-two years of sporadic writing—I still returned home to my computer and typed what I remembered.

The same thing happened the next day as I walked, only this time John the Baptist was talking about who Yeshua was for him. Once again, I returned home, typed the monologue, and saved it. 

I knew that both speakers were part of Luke’s Gospel in the Christian Testament, so I began to reread that gospel. In it, I met many people whose lives were touched by Yeshua. I began to wonder how they must have felt about him. That was the beginning.

Next week, I’ll discuss the storyline that became the first draft of the novel.

Peace.

Painting from Wikipedia: 
The Preaching of John the Baptist
by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1566