Author: Andrew Stone
Located in: UK
Submitted: July 21, 2019
Tell us a little about yourself. I am an ordained minister of religion who has experience of working in broadcasting and journalism. I am married to Alison and we have three grown-up sons.
What was your motivation behind this project? I wanted to write a novel that would tell some of the story of Jesus in a different way and one that I hoped would engage with people whether or not they had a faith. I decided to tell that story through Barabbas, the man released in the hours leading up to Jesus' crucifixion. We know nothing else about him except that, arguably, he was the first person to have his life changed because of Jesus' death. I thought that made him an interesting person to centre a novel on.
What do you hope folks will gain from this project? Son of the Father is a work of fiction based around real people and events from 2,000 years ago. But it's not an historical record. I've used a novelist's artistic licence to create events, relationships, conversations and back stories in order to tell my story.
However, there is one truth that runs throughout the fiction. It is that, regardless of what a person may have done, how many mistakes they may have made, and how many times they tried to put things right, they can always be saved from their situation, and if necessary themselves, by Jesus Christ. No one is beyond His redeeming grace.
How were you personally impacted by working on this project? My previous writing experiences have been in the world of broadcasting, newspapers and magazines. This is my debut novel and I have learnt that book publishing is a very different - and slower - world than anything I have worked in before! But I understand that when you're dealing with a 90,000 word manuscript it is going to take longer than a 350 word magazine editorial. And as patience is one of the fruit of the Spirit, I reckon it has all been good for my soul!
Anything else you'd like readers / listeners to know: My hope is that if Christians buy and read this book, they will want to encourage friends and relatives who don't yet have a faith to read it, in the hope that it will encourage those friends and relatives to think about what Jesus' death and resurrection could mean to them.
