Q & A with David Maine discussion

Yup, I wrote a book about Adam and Eve. Backwards. Any questions?

Hey there David! This is the book that brought you and I together :)

It will always hold a special place in my heart -

(1) Because I found it as I was searching through the murky, cheesy depths of christian conspiracy fiction (it was a strange phase for me, what can I say?) and it was so unlike every book I had read at the time.

(2) It prompted conversation between us and led me to read all of your other novels!

The only question I have is....

Do you ever plan to go back to writing biblical fiction? Are there any other characters within the bible that are begging you to tell their story?

Hi Lori! If the only result of my writing Fallen had been to bring us together, it will have been worth it... ;-)

I think about going back to the Bible sometimes, but I'm afraid to get into a rut. I think I got three really good books from it, but I want to quit while I'm ahead. That said, there are still some good stories in there, and if I could find a new approach to them, I might think about it. For a while I've been flirting with doing a graphic novel--I love the form and I think it might suit the material really well. I think doing a book about Jonah as a graphic novel could be awesome. The only problem is, I can't draw to save my life, and I have really high, fussy standards. So, can anybody out there draw? Anybody want to collaborate?

This is the first book I read of yours, as well, David. I was hooked. It was brilliant with it's funny, sad and strange moments. I loved the idea of looking a Adam, Eve and their decendants as human, not myth. It made it interesting and acceptable to remove the mythological fog around these characters and make them as normal as can be in the situation they are in after God spanks them for being "bad." Sympatyzing with both Cain and Abel was a blast for me as it is NEVER black and white, good or bad for me. I like the shades of grey, the shades of humanity.

Did you enjoy writing this book and are you ever afraid you will upset zealots?

Thanks for the kind words, Shorshanik.

I had a ball writing Fallen, although it was logistically tricky to do the backwards thing. I had to keep checking that I was getting events in the right order... Like in one chapter, say, there would be a fight, and then in the next chapter they're be talking about it...except that the "next" chapter happened earlier in time, before the fight took place. Oops. After a while I got the hang of how to do it, but for a while there I was making mistakes like that all the time.

I also had fun playing with the chapter titles, using the same ones for different times and characters and so on. Nobody has ever commented on that but to me it was an important little structural piece.

As for zealots, I guess I never thought about them much. I figure, treat your characters with respect and who'll get mad about it? Of course there are some people who resent the sexual element or whatever, but geez, Adam and Eve populated the entire world (or so goes the theory), so there must have been sex involved somewhere along the line.

I've always tried to walk the line between respecting these characters without treating them as divine. There will always be some people, I guess, who feel that a book's job is to reinforce Scripture, but I've never felt that way. I guess I'm lucky that most people who do aren't likely to read my books!