The author was born in Cleveland, Ohio from two Florida crackers. In college, his mother was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and, after medical school, his father was a successful doctor. In his middle ...показать большеThe author was born in Cleveland, Ohio from two Florida crackers. In college, his mother was a member of Phi Beta Kappa and, after medical school, his father was a successful doctor. In his middle years he was an avid reader and consumer of television programming such as Touched by an Angel, Highway to Heaven, and Star Trek. He enjoys the writing of Carl Sagan and Robert Ludlum as well as his uncle, Tom Morrill. Having been raised as a Southern Baptist, he has a strong familiarity with the Bible.
Much of the details of the main character’s life in this book parallel actual life events of the author. The author earned an MBA in finance, served four years in the military, and 14 years with the Department of Homeland Security. He was trained initially as a bank credit analyst whose function was to evaluate the feasibility of loan requests.
The motivation for the book arose when a Jewish friend asked him to describe his feelings about the afterlife. After a substantial amount of research, he wrote the book with inspiration from the penitent thief from the Bible as well as thoughts from The Inescapable Love of God by Thomas Talbott and Where God Was Born by Bruce Feiler. The primary thesis of the book is that the love of God encompasses all his children on Earth and it is unthinkable that anyone would be barred from Heaven simply because he is not a Christian.показать меньше