The Enigma of Father Vera Daniel by Michael Gryboski

Behind the Story: The Enigma of Father Vera Daniel

By Michael Gryboski

Before he became famous for losing the Battle of Little Bighorn, George Armstrong Custer served in the Union Army during the American Civil War. In the middle of that horrid conflict, Custer attended the wedding of a friend from West Point named John Willis Lea. The event sounds innocuous enough, until one learns that Lea was a captain in the Confederate Army. And yet, Custer attended the ceremony, as his friendship to Lea was greater than the violent differences between North and South.

Custer’s actions seem especially outlandish in our modern era. Although there have been times of greater incivility, the present age ranks poorly when it comes to political discourse. It has become very easy to cut off people, even family and close friends, on the basis of posting the “wrong” thing to social media, going to the “wrong” restaurant, liking the “wrong” politician, or even using the “wrong” pronouns. It takes so remarkably little to offend, and for that offense to be used to justify total cancellation. I would not be surprised if every person who reads this blog entry has had at least one friend or family member sever ties with them in recent years over ideological differences. It is a disturbing trend for which no faction in America can claim innocence.

This is driven by an innate refusal to understand the intentions of the other. It seems beyond the intellect of many to understand that maybe support for a controversial presidential candidate comes in spite of their shortcomings, not because of them. Maybe they patron a given business in spite of the political stances of their leadership, not because of them. Maybe, just maybe, a person speaks well of another not because they subscribe to every moral aspect of their worldview, but because they are friends, whose friendship has always recognized differences. Such benefits of a doubt, such concessions of basic human decency, appear to be bestowed less and less across partisan lines. There is so much self-inflicted wounding, making necessary political choices all the more painful.

Next week, I will have my latest novel released. Titled The Enigma of Father Vera Daniel, the story follows an eighteenth century Catholic priest trying to survive in an increasingly intolerant Kingdom that is on the eve of Revolution. While the setting and the story are both fictional, the issues it raises are quite relevant: A political climate that is becoming more and more volatile, people becoming less accepting of ideological differences, a binary politic that rewards the most extreme of political actions, and ordinary people being forced to choose between one vile faction or another.

It is my hope and prayer that readers of The Enigma of Father Vera Daniel will not only enjoy the story, but be positively influenced by the messages I hope to convey through the tribulations of its main character. It is my hope and prayer that if readers see themselves in the protagonist, they will also see someone politically different in the protagonist.

This is not a call to back away from principle. Father Vera Daniel was guided by principle throughout his adult life, as shall be seen in the pages of my story. The issue is how to respond to finding human beings on the other side. Not cartoonish villains, not internet bots, not social media trolls, but fellow human beings, who, for their own reasons, are face-to-face instead of shoulder-to-shoulder.

Pre-Order The Enigma of Father Vera Daniel.

Michael Gryboski was born and raised in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. He graduated from George Mason University with a bachelor of arts and then a master’s, both in history. In addition to writing fiction, Michael also writes news articles for a living. Michael would rather be correct than widely accepted.