Of Saints and Rivers follows the McClellan family across multiple generations, told through the eyes of the youngest son, who embarks on a relentless quest for purpose and healing that sends him far from home and back again. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?

A number of real-life family incidents shaped portions of the novel. My great-grandfather witnessed the killing of his family by Indians as a boy before serving as a Texas Ranger, deputy U.S. Marshal, riding the Western Cattle Trail, and homesteading on the Canadian River in western Oklahoma. A daughter was banned from the family for marrying someone from outside the church. The family land was lost during the Depression. As a young man, my grandfather served prison time for hitting and killing a pedestrian while driving when intoxicated.

For many years, I had a troubled relationship with my father, a decorated naval dive-bomber pilot, who once hit me hard in the face for arguing when I was young. My last words to him as he died were that I loved him. I seriously considered the ministry before changing my mind over troubling theological issues. War took a heavy toll on my family. As for early romantic misadventures, I’ll just say that—among my brothers, myself, and others—our family has seen its share.

While a degree of creative license was taken for the sake of story, much of Jordan’s journey was borrowed from my family’s history, and many of his personal reflections mirror my own. To paraphrase the writer, Wallace Stegner: sometimes truth is best told as fiction.

What were some of the trials that you felt were important to highlight Jordan’s development?

At the story’s core is his conflict with a celebrated father, as both men grapple with their pasts and Jordan struggles with the shadow of his older brother. Among his trials is a tragic family accident that leads to alcohol as a means of coping with guilt. Another is youthful desire that culminates in a forbidden love with a married woman—and, in its wake, more alcohol and even greater tragedy—followed by the unthinkable. The novel is, in many ways, a forty-year coming-of-age story of a gifted-but-troubled son’s ongoing struggle with guilt, moral dilemmas, religious doubt, and his search for meaning, atonement, healing, and love.

What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?

Aside from the above-mentioned parental conflict, addiction, and religious doubt, I wanted to address prejudice (both racial and gender-related), marital abuse, grief, forgiveness, the role of chance in our lives, and how love and loss so often travel together. I wanted also to ask some tough questions of God and ourselves.

What is the next book you’re working on, and when can we expect it to be available?

I consider myself to be primarily a magazine writer of historical articles. Of Saints and Rivers is my first novel. What began as a simple wish to leave behind, for my family, something of our family roots and what I felt, loved, and believed grew somehow into a book. While I have some ideas for another, at this point they’re still just ideas. I prefer to see how readers like this one before saying more. Thank you so much for your thoughtful interest.

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