The Last Missioner follows humanity’s surviving Remnant a thousand years after a catastrophic event as distinct cultures struggle to preserve civilization in a world shaped by technology, theology, and biblical prophecy. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

The story evolved rather slowly. It all started when Salvador Dali’s The Last Supper came to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, FL in 2005 or 2006. I was living in Tampa at the time and already knew the painting well. When I saw the original at the museum, something in me clicked on, and I had stuck in my mind the “flavor” of an exotic far-future world. I had already completed 2 feature film screenplays and wanted to think about another project. That painting got me going. Around the same time, I saw something about a city … I can’t remember which city (this was 18 years ago!) and how its name evolved over time. And I got caught up with that notion. I remember cutting grass on the church property where I lived and imagining how American city names might evolve over the next 100, 200 years. One was Atlanta, Seattle, New Orleans, St. Louis, etc. Eventually, all this came together. The far-future look (in my mind) of the Dali Last Supper made me think of Revelation 20:1-3 … the Christ reigning one-thousand years passage, which always fascinated me. For a long time, I had indulged in my meditations how that might look and how the Devil might be let out for a short time upon the completion of that utopian period. This spurred me into thoughts in terms of story. I immediately imagined a child being raised in the conventions of this age and being “pulled out” of it, instigated by the Devil. I jotted notes down as details emerged. Eventually, by 2009, I had enough ideas and direction to begin drafting my third feature film script. I completed it, got some reaction in Hollywood (the script placed in the top 20% in the Nicholl Fellowship of the Academy of Motion Pictures- but didn’t place). I did have a major Hollywood director’s attention, but his final verdict was that it was good, but too religious for the budget size in Hollywood. Finally, I came to “novelize” it and completed the novel in 2017. Over the years since—over the Covid lockdowns, especially—I rewrote and tweaked and spruced up, and added stuff on here and there, etc. while at the same time completing and rewriting its prequel. So, THE LAST MISSIONER is the first of two novels I have ready for the publication process. The second, waiting in the wings, is AWAKEN ELECT! … which takes place at the beginning of the thousand years, where the Eclecti (elect) awaken and come to know this changed Earth with its new, strange properties.

How did you develop the three charisms of the Jurans, Lewans, and Noochi, and what do their different abilities reveal about their cultures?

These three “nations” came about as my geography of a far future USA evolved. It was something that I was just fixated on and toying with in my head at the time (2006/2007) as I did manual work like cutting grass, mopping the parish center floor, walking on the treadmill, etc. Some cities I thought about were Atlanta, Georgia (Atalan Jur… Jurans), St. Louis (Lews.. Lewans), Chattanooga (Nooga… Noochi), New Orleans (Orlen’s Gate… Orlen), Seattle (Sydyl… Sydylis XII) a thousand years in the future. It was a silly, inane game, but it fired my imagination. The names become different, but the cities are in the same locations as in pre-tribulation times (our time). So, the charisms of the citizens in the three nations developed as I tried to grow a story concerning these three of these locations. So, that imagined far-future geography I conjured up was the springboard. The three charisms (reflecting the persons of the Trinity) followed gradually as I created the story. Then, while I was writing the screenplay and even more so while fleshing out the novel in 2016/17, details about the individual cultures and distinctive features began to take shape. I had LOTS of time and no pressure at all, and I was constantly thinking things out …. so, lots of ideas brewed and matured. I should mention that I was the vocation director for my province of Capuchins at the time. So, I had to make long drives for candidate interviews a couple times a year. 15-18 hours alone in a car, going from NJ to Louisiana to Florida and everywhere in between. I carried with me a digital recorder and brainstormed for long hours on those trips. This alone generated a wealth of detail regarding worldbuilding, plot and character development.

How did you balance the novel’s detailed theological and philosophical ideas with the demands of adventure and storytelling?

Much of the theological details, philosophical and scriptural references come from my background as a religious brother who is engaged daily in community prayer and private prayer and had a thorough formation during my initial years within the community. As a semi-contemplative, much of this is in the air I breathe. The adventure and storytelling are very much the result of me trying to make a great feature film! As a screenwriter writing spec scripts, I adhered faithfully to the screenwriting three-act structure: 1 minute per page, 120 pages complete with inciting incident, plot points, the Act II Curtain (low point in the protagonist’s journey), final drive and resolution in Act III, denouement, etc. So, when I made the novel, I kept that structure intact and expanded on it to make a larger, more detailed read of the same proportions, which was a lot of fun!

Ultimately, what do you hope readers take away from John Micah’s journey and The Last Missioner as a whole? I aimed to portray familiar tenets of faith (those familiar tropes that we are so accustomed to that we might take them for granted) and apply a fresh angle or shine a different light, bringing new relief to the established truths. The exotic quality of THE LAST MISSIONER’s world should inspire and engage readers who are looking for an experience of fantasy, but in the end realize that THIS fantasy is really a metaphor for what exists in reality, now in our present time! How many high school kids, for instance, read Dune or Lord of the Rings, and afterwards say, “Wow, I wish Middle Earth or Arrakis actually were real. I wish I could live in that world.” Well in my book, I offer a far-future, exotic place and story and the reader could conclude, “Wow, that was a fun excursion and it’s a reflection of what is really here among us now! I can live in this world by embracing the Church or the synagogue or the mosque. There is an intentional blend of Christian (particularly Catholic), Jewish and some Muslim elements in my world-building. This is to demonstrate that we are all children of Abraham living under the same loving God—like under the constant sunrays falling upon the Grat-hemis in my story. I hope this comes through for every reader.

Author Links: GoodReads | X | Website