L.E. Austen is the author of the new novel The Holy Doves. She lives in New Mexico.
Q: What inspired you to write The Holy Doves?
A: I was sitting in mass at a Trappist monastery and watching the faces of both the monks and the other worshipers, and I thought to myself why can’t I believe this much? Why do I have so many questions? Why don’t most of the Bible stories make any sense to me?
And I was asking myself these questions when all of a sudden the story of modern-day annunciation and appearance of a new Messiah just exploded in my head.
Q: How did you research the book, and did you learn anything that especially surprised you?
A: Researching the story in itself was an education. I read all that I could regarding the early religious faiths, not only Christianity.
Q: Did you know how the novel would end before you started writing it, or did you make many changes along the way?
A: I did have an idea of how the story would end or at least where I would stop the story. Unfortunately, my characters developed their own strengths and personalities and a few of them did things that surprised me, especially Felix and Gabriel. They just took off and totally ignored the outline.
Q: What do you hope readers take away from the book?
A: I hope the readers take away the understanding they were blessed with the gifts of free will, intelligence, and curiosity. I hope that they use these gifts to develop a new understanding of their individual and personal relationship with God, which does not necessarily include a commitment to any religious dogma.
Q: What are you working on now?
A: The story continues of the Messiah’s childhood in a deeply troubling world.
Q: Anything else we should know?
A: Every man-made religion from the beginning of time has at some point faded away into the realm of mythology when it no longer reflects their cultural and intellectual values.
When one looks at the declining attendance in all three major Western religions it makes me believe that many people are rejecting archaic stories that are often filled with unbelievable cruelty or are ridiculous to the modern mind and scientifically disproved.
But I also believe that the majority are not rejecting the idea of something that unites us all, whether it is a spiritual being or an accepted moral code that we can all believe in. We must come to a new understanding of our place in the universe.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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