Godson

About the Book

Like icebergs, humans conceal most of the "baggage" they carry, keeping it below the surface. What is exposed is orchestrated carefully.

The person we become - good or bad or, more likely, an amalgam of the two - is the result of the stories we believe (religion) and our experiences.

We keep secrets which we guard jealously. The motives behind our actions are seldom clear to an independent observer, and, too frequently, to the individual committing the action. Good intentions motivate most actions.

Frequently, good intentions and decisions lead us to places we never intended to go. This principle of unintended consequences serves as the starting point for my novel. It recurs throughout the book.

In medicine, a breakthrough may lead to applications the discoverer never imagined.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, religion frequently lights the guideposts. Humans, too frequently, pervert religion for their own purposes. The threats posed by rigid religious fundamentalists, whether Christian or Muslim, are real and frightening. We see examples of this daily. The wolves lead the flocks, and, more frightening, the sheep follow quietly to their slaughter.

The killing of Dr. Angelo, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine in the year 2000, by a pro-life fanatic, for his discovery of Laboron, the hormone responsible for the initiation of the birth process in all mammals, would have unforeseen consequences for the staff at the previously sedate St. Jude's Hospital, and the community it served.

Good, honest people, going about their normal routines would soon be tossed about by a maelstrom of unintended consequences.

The bishop, the heart surgeon, and the hospital CEO could not foresee how dramatically their lives would be altered in the next few months.

About the Author

This is the first novel by a man who has planned/dreamed to write fiction since his undergraduate days at Fordham University. To write about life, what makes it worth living? Is there any significance to our existence? Is there a God controlling our destinies, or are we adrift in a limitless, indifferent universe? If adrift, can we fashion a moral rudder to steer through life without recourse to religion? These are questions which are explored through the lives and decisions, the joys and the pathos, of our heroes and villains.

Time spent in a seminary, and a 30 year medical carrier, give the author a unique perspective on the human condition.