How did a New York–born, Jewish, former-atheist novelist and screenwriter—a winner of multiple Edgar Awards, whose books became films with Clint Eastwood and Michael Douglas—find himself at the age of fifty being baptized and confessing Jesus as Lord? That’s a tale worth telling.

From his childhood outside New York City, through his years as college-dropout wanderer and on to his growing success as a writer, Andrew Klavan consumed stories. From novels and plays to movies and the Bible, literature helped him interpret the world and understand his place in it. Dropping out of college to wander the country as an itinerant journalist, he met the woman who became his wife—and tales of marriage have been central to his writing ever since. Wrestling with severe depression that took him to the brink of suicide, his reading of Hamlet and even Freud became crucial life-giving supports. And lying in bed reading Patrick O’Brien’s seafaring tales, he found the courage to say a prayer—“thank you”—that overturned his life and led, inevitably, to his baptism in New York City a few days after his father’s memorial service. The stories of Western literature led Andrew Klavan to Jesus. This is Klavan’s story of that journey.