PW: Your new book, Just Shy of Harmony, is with Harper San Francisco and not Multnomah, your publisher for the last several years. Why the change?
PG: I wanted to get a little more theological with my writing. It became clear to me and to Multnomah that my theology, with its Quaker emphasis on the nature of grace, seemed inconsistent with Multnomah's evangelical mission. At that point, we just elected to part company, and I hooked up with Harper San Francisco. It was actually a congenial parting, more sad than anything.
PW: What are your plans with Harper?
PG: They bought all of the rights to my work, a total of eight books. There will also be a book on grace and a Christmas book.
PW: Many readers enjoyed the smalltown wisdom and humor of Home to Harmony. What happens in Just Shy of Harmony?
PG:Just Shy of Harmony is about Sam Gardner's second year at Harmony Friends Meeting. In this book, Sam has a crisis of faith and stops believing in God. He just reaches a point where it no longer seems real to him. He makes the mistake of telling his congregation, and the rest of the book plays out what happens and how different people react. It's largely a novel about how we handle doubt in the Christian community.
PW: And how do Christians deal with doubt?
PG: It's been my experience that we don't handle it well. We either don't talk about it, or we get upset. In the story, some people can't handle it and get angry or scared, while others are very tender and tell Sam about their own struggles to believe. I think that, spiritually, doubt can be a wonderful means to grown and learn, because then we ask questions. How else can we learn?
PW: How do Sam's experiences resonate with your own?
PG: This is what I write largely because it is what has happened to me. There are times as a pastor when I wake up and realize that the things I preach are things I'm not always sure about. I've just never been able to sustain 100% faith. I used to try, and it depressed me, so I stopped. In my writing, I am able to use my doubts to help other people.
PW: You're a Quaker minister. Are some of the eccentric characters in your novels based on people in your congregation?
PG: It would be wrong to say that none of it is based on my congregation. But most of it I just dream up. I try to think of what individual people would do, and then I carry those people to their logical absurdity.
PW: How do your books differ from other Christian novels?
PG: I get a lot of letters from people who like the human insights of my books. My books tell them that it's okay to be broken. That being human is not a sin, and that there is grace for people. I get frustrated sometimes when I read Christian fiction. It seems unreal to me. Going to church and having the right beliefs doesn't always change your life immediately. You still struggle. And it just seems to me that somebody ought to write about that.
PW: So what's next for Sam Gardner?
PG: By the end of this book, Sam believes again. But in future books the doubts begin to haunt him once more, and we'll have to go deeper — reflect more, and ask ourselves even harder questions. I want Sam to do that in future Harmony books. I also feel that it's important for him to remain in his community, even though that community sometimes drives him nuts.
