His first book, “Fatherless,” recently hit the Catholic bestseller list. The second book of his trilogy, “Motherless,” is due to be released in late October (by Human Life International). The third book, “Childless,” is currently being written.

In his books, Gail incorporates his experience as a husband, father and grandfather, a former semi-pro athlete, and a retired CEO and entrepreneur. Currently, he writes, educates, and gives talks worldwide.

Gail explained to ZENIT about how this trilogy follows a 40-year strategy against the family, incorporating historical facts and real life stories to illustrate the key enemies, heroes and plots of our time.

Part 2 of this interview will be published Wednesday.

ZENIT: Could you give us a preview of what we can expect in this trilogy?

Gail: It is called “The American Tragedy in Trilogy.”

It is about the demonic attack on family, and how it brought down one of the greatest empires in human history, how Satan took dead aim on family, in our time, in one of the greatest of countries — and civilizations actually — in the same way he did in the garden, through the big lie.

By taking father out of the home, taking mother out of the home, by creating technology that is all pervasive in the home, he prepares the soil for the ultimate solution, which is the life sciences revolution.

This will be the nullification of Genesis; it will be man creating man in his image and likeness.

The trilogy explores that Biblically significant (in my opinion) 40-year period, between morning in America — the 1980s — and midnight in America — the 2020s.

The first book picked up on pornography, cable porn in the home — in the sanctuary — and the Pill in the cabinet, and the devastation that these wreaked in the family.

The next step on the slippery slope is life in the Petri dish, life in the laboratory, created without the mothers; thus the second book is called “Motherless.” It covers in vitro fertilization, under the microscope so to speak, along with embryonic stem cell testing.

We move ultimately to “Childless,” set in the 2020s, when nanotechnology, the transhuman society, nanobots and hybrids, ultimately give rise to the “human species 2.0.” We’re all 1.0, whereas 2.0 means — as Ray Kurzweil, its herald, its “John the Baptist,” proclaimed in his last book — the fusion of what he refers to as biological intelligence and artificial intelligence.

Man, therefore, now having a computer inside of him, being part computer, has the capacity of a mainframe to zip, sort and compute. And even then they will introduce the virtual experiences into that software, which becomes neural implants in the minds of 2.0 humans.

We’re just a primitive version, and they’re at work on a refinement. They are going to fix the problems. They are going to do it out of subatomic particles that they themselves created. The technology was imbedded, not by a god, but they discovered it and so therefore in their own minds, in their own bubble, they are creating out of nothing.

The trilogy is about morning to midnight, about father to child, about, as John Paul II said, the final confrontation between the Gospel and the anti-Gospel.

ZENIT: In many ways we’ve been able to see the negative effects of pornography and contraception in a multitude of broken marriages and families, but we have not yet seen the long-term consequences of the widespread use of in vitro fertilization. What do you think will be its effect on society and the family?

Gail: I think there will be both a short-term and a long-term consequence of our society’s embrace of in vitro fertilization.

There is the immediate consequence of significantly adding to the estimated 500,000 embryos cryogenically preserved in some 225 storage facilities scattered across the country. These are children who were created outside the marriage act — often by married couples — and who are now motherless.

This is a human disaster of the first order — not just for the children who will eventually be chopped up and used for commercial research purposes (tissue for embryonic stem cell research) or simply discarded as refuse — but for the institution of family and, therefore, America.

Longer term in vitro fertilization, like its twin sister embryonic stem cell research, is simply the next steep slide down the slippery slope into the dark abyss that is the culture of death.

It is an essential demonic coordinate in the race to nullify in hate what God created in love.

It will lead inexorably to what are already being called transhumans — the fusion of artificial and biological intelligence in a new species of man some nanotechnologists are already referring to as “Homo Evolutus.”

This is nothing less that man creating man in his own image and likeness — a nullification of Genesis I. This pure hubris could well summon fire to fall from the sky.

ZENIT: In your book, “Fatherless,” you focus on the everyday conflicts that men in particular experience in daily life. What would you say is the most important point for men to remember in understanding how to daily seek holiness?

Gail: It is to be a father in a fatherless world, now that the currency has been devalued in the past generation and a half.

The father has to do one thing: He has to model and teach his children how to say no to self.

We have not been able to bridge the gap between what our technology permits us to do and what our hearts tell us we want to do. And unless a father can teach his child how to say no to self, he fails in his primary accountability in his vocation.

The great problem of today, the great existential crisis is this identity crisis man has because we have not been able to say no to self.

The secret is that a man can only say no to self if first he has said yes to God. A no to God makes a no to self impossible — not difficult or remote, but impossible.

The story looks at the moral dilemmas facing three Catholic families who seek guidance from a young associate pastor. One case explores the way in which the pharmaceutical industry achieved cultural and governmental approval of oral contraceptives in spite of the serious medical risks to women. The second case follows the marketing of premium cable channels and the infiltration of smut as entertainment into the homes of unsuspecting families.

The third case is a little less clear. I suspect that Gail wanted to show that contraceptive use undermines marriage, but he also pulls in themes of clerical pedophilia, mental disorder, and demonic oppression without ever providing a satisfactory resolution. Thus, it becomes unclear what drives the actions of the third family’s father. Take away the extraordinary circumstances of his daughter’s behavior, and things might well have turned out differently. Of the three families in the novel, the plot for the third was the least satisfying for me as a reader.

The three plots are woven together into a fourth story line that follows the ministry of a priest who, at the beginning of the tale is just entering his second year after ordination. The over-arching theme of Gail’s novel might be the way in which the Catholic Church lost its moral voice in the ‘60s and ‘70s and only started to recover that voice under the leadership of Pope John Paul II. The bishops and dissenting theologians are particularly singled out for their sins of omission (for the bishops) and commission (for the theologians).

Overall, the book provides an important focus for discussion, even if it does fall short in some areas. I will certainly recommend it to anyone interested in the threat posed to the family by the prevailing American culture.

Mr. Gail’s first novel, Fatherless, published by Human Life International, has been selected as readers’ #1 choice for the Catholic Summer Reading Program sponsored by Aquinas and More booksellers, and subsequently has become a best seller.

As a compelling voice in the New Evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II, Mr. Gail has been invited by the Catholic Archdiocese of Westminster to deliver a keynote address welcoming His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to England for its annual Theology of the Body lecture on September 14. Mr. Gail will speak on the topic “In the Service of Woman – Men are Called to Greatness”, a theme chosen to highlight the modern secular crisis in Britain and the world.Mr. Gail explains the broad background of society’s current dilemma: “Modern man has experienced three revolutions. In the Industrial Revolution, as we shifted from an agrarian society, the father was called out of the home, away from his wife and children.” Repeating the promise of greater material prosperity, the Cultural or Sexual Revolution separated women from their traditional role as mothers and subsequently separated wives and mothers from their husbands and children as they, too, left the home to work. “The current Technological Revolution accelerates the pace of life, and the outside world pervades the home. This paves the way for a coming fourth revolution in the so-called ‘life sciences’ in which man attempts to recreate himself in his own image and likeness.”

“Nobody is suggesting that women are not fully capable [of leading in the public or corporate world].” But the damage this movement has inflicted is real and personal. “When a woman shuts herself off to the gift of life, she denies her self and allows herself to be objectified. Objectification is where love goes to die. This objectification of woman is no less ruinous to man than the objectification and exploitation of workers by unscrupulous employers.”

Theology of the Body spokesman Christopher West has recommended Fatherless “for anyone who wonders why our culture has spiraled out of control in the past 40 years.” Conceived as the first installment of what Mr. Gail has named “The American Tragedy in Trilogy”, the book tackles head-on the sacred cow of modern life, artificial birth control. The Pill and the contraceptive mentality that has accompanied its acceptance marginalize the role of the father, first in the creation of new life, and then in his children’s upbringing.

Mr. Gail maintains it is the job of the father to teach his child “to say ‘yes’ to God, and ‘no’ to self.” The failure of recent generations to convey this moral lesson is evident in the chaos of modern culture, a level of chaos which has prompted theologian and Catholic apologist Peter Kreeft to describe the Pill as more destructive than a nuclear bomb.

Set in the fictionalized town of Narbrook on Philadelphia’s Main Line, Fatherless follows three families struggling to live their Catholic faith in a hostile world. At its center is Father John Sweeney, a young priest torn between his human desire to be loved by his flock and his spiritual duty to deliver some of life’s hard lessons.

Mr. Gail’s extensive research and his personal experience as a Madison Avenue executive impart the unmistakable ring of truth to this novel. Readers gain extraordinary insight into how the cable television industry snaked its way into American homes, damaging children and their parents by unprecedented exposure to explicit sexual content.

Even more profound effects come from the power of the imagination as a tool for catechesis. “Christ used stories to teach, and we are called to imitate Christ,” explains the author. Fatherless is constructed of “stories of individual lives of people like us, living in this present moment of great confusion.” Most broadly it explores “how our modern vision of the American Dream conflicts with our universal call to holiness.”

The discipline of fiction allows the author to catechize by bringing his readers just to the point of a moral lesson, but allowing them to reach the final conclusion on their own, a powerfully effective method of instruction.

“Using imagination as a tool,” Mr. Gail continues, “we don’t need to tie together all of the loose ends. I am often asked why there aren’t more happy endings [for the characters in Fatherless]. The answer is twofold. Some of these stories find happy resolution in the second book (Motherless, expected to issue this October), but also these books illustrate the importance of hope in what is unseen if we are to live as people of faith. Otherwise we place our hope in what is transitory, and man will always disappoint.”

The entire trilogy, Fatherless, Motherless, and Childless, is planned to span 40 years, from the mid-1980’s to 2025. Drawing on extensive research into the current state of the art of In-Vitro Fertilization and Embryonic Stem Cell research, Motherless will again pit its central characters against technologies that promise miracles but deliver suffering and death. The appeal of these promises to our most noble impulses makes this betrayal even more poignant.

Brian Gail is scheduled to moderate discussions on “The Challenge of Same Sex ‘Marriage’” and “Theology of the Body and the call to Holiness” at the National Theology of the Body Conference to be held in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania July 28-31.

Edmund Adamus, the Director of Pastoral Affairs for the Diocese, told LifeSiteNews.com that the event “will hopefully play some small but not insignificant part in setting the proper and better scene and ambience in which to receive the Vicar of Christ.”

Both the theme of the talk and its speaker, he said, were chosen to highlight the modern secular crisis: the topic for the talk, for example, is intended to serve as a response to the blurring of gender differences that runs rampant in Great Britain and the world.

“More and more people are beginning to realize that the feminization of masculinity and the laddish culture that haunts the development of young girls and women is not providing the answers to life’s deepest questions about human love and relationships,” said Adamus.

This loss of gender identity, he said, leads to a loss of personal identity; to regain it, men must be willing to respect and sacrifice for the women they love. “In paying due honor and respect to all women in all circumstances … we as men grow towards the fullness of our manhood in Christ – we become heroes,” he said.

Adamus said that Fatherless author Brian Gail was a perfect fit for conveying the message to respect and honor women: in Fatherless, Gail explores the “fatherless-ness” of the twentieth century by, among other things, exploring how the Pill has shattered the relationship between men and women.

“The book Fatherless encapsulates so much of what is wrong in society in terms of family dysfunction and breakdown in spelling out the toxic nature of the contraceptive mentality,” said Adamus.

Further, Adamus pointed out that marriage was a key component of English spirituality in a title given to the country: in medieval times, England was called the “Dowry of Mary.” “English Christianity in the plan of God has a unique role to play in being a secure foundation (like a dowry in a marriage) to the work of redemption and salvation history,” he said.

Adamus said that it was especially important for the Pope to re-evengelize Britain, as it has become a leading player in modern secularism - as exhibited by the hostility shown to the Holy Father’s upcoming visit.

“Whether we like it or not,” he said, Britain has been and remains “the geo-political epicenter of the culture of death.”

Thus, said Adamus, the lecture “is a heartfelt appeal to (Pope Benedict) as our leader to bring before the whole nation once again what was for the first apostle to the English, St. Augustine of Canterbury – a recipe for success – the Catholic truth concerning authentic human sexuality and the doctrine of marriage and the family.”

Click here for more information.

From a Catholic perspective “Father” becomes a multi-dimensional word that can encompass the role of pastor, biological father, care-giving father and Heavenly Father — at the very least. Then to imagine any of these roles in a way that would constitute the “less” part of the title, well, I was anxious to get answers to my questions and so approached Brian J. Gail’s novel with gusto.

Halfway through the 540 page work, I began to see that no “wrapped up in a bow” resolutions to all the masterfully interconnected lives and events were forthcoming. I remember having a bit of a panic as I continued to read and started thinking to myself, how am I going to write a review of this book?

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Fatherless is, at its core, a story about hope. Even though none of the situations resolve themselves in a way to give credibility to what I’ve just written, I can see how Fatherless is really a story about hope. But this can only be said if one understands hope to be something placed in the eternal not in the tangible, if one is able to see that hope rests in what is possible and not in what “is.” In that way, Fatherless is completely about hope; it is abundantly clear that hope ought never to be in man but rather in God.

Which seems a bit dishearteningly on the face of it, but Fatherless makes a point of identifying what Gail told me in a subsequent conversation is the “default” position: man is accountable and must always do the right thing. Furthermore, in doing the right thing, man cannot count on earthly rewards.

And there’s the rub; man, in his fallen nature, more or less always seeks some sort of earthly rewards for his efforts. But Gail never aims to dupe the reader into believing that “happily ever after” is a real state of being.

Brian Gail has earned the right to be determined in his message; his own life is quite a testament to holding one’s ground and staying true to a belief system even in the midst of personal tragedy and professional upheavals.

I thoroughly enjoyed a hour time with Brian; it certainly became much more of a conversation than an interview. We talked and I filled pages with notes as Brian is an intelligent, articulate and passionate man with a message — a message he begins in Fatherless and will complete in the additional two books that are part of a trilogy published by Father Euteneuer’s Human Life International. Motherless is the second book, due out in October, and at some future point in time the third, called Childless, will arrive on the scene.

Gail does nothing to hide his disapproval of the way the Catholic Church’s hierarchy has been nearly silent on many issues beginning with the introduction of the birth control pill and its evil consequences and continuing with the disparity between magisterial truths and the ways in which those truths are bent to accommodate personal beliefs. But don’t get me wrong, Brian Gail handles his criticisms of the Church’s ministers well and each character in his book is completely credible.  When Gail writes an exchange between a parish priest and a member of the frustrated flock, you feel it is a conversation you might very well have had — or have wanted to have. Gail’s own years of experience in the cable industry and in the pharmaceutical industry lend themselves well to his creating scenes of meetings and behind-the-door conversations that are alarmingly real in both the words chosen and their covert nature. In talking with Gail I had to ask where the line between fiction and non-fiction ran because it was such an invisible delineation.

Fatherless is the sort of book that is difficult to pigeonhole. It is at once a work of fiction but so filled with elements of reality that it becomes a lesson, of sorts. There is a darkness evident in its honest representation of our fallen nature and there are definitely circumstances that will leave the reader yearning for “tied-up-in-a-bow” endings.  But Gail remains true to his mission with this work: to reveal that truth and hope should only be placed in God and that man, regardless of his choices, should always remain true to his call as a baptized follower of Christ.

After speaking with Brian Gail I had the opportunity to pose a few questions to Father Tom Euteneuer who shares some insights on his role as publisher of Fatherless:

Cheryl: I have always felt a need for fiction books as a Catholic tool of evangelization and so I began Bezalel Books around 4 years ago in an effort to offer great Catholic fiction books to Catholic families. I know your efforts at HLI are the same and so I feel a kindred spirit to what you are doing here. How do you see the role of fiction books as a means of evangelization for Catholics?

Father Tom: There are many ways that we can educate people in an effort to change and convert their hearts toward living out God’s perfect plan in their lives.  HLI has many tools available by way of factual pamphlets, CD’s, and other forms of educational reading.  But the Catholic novel goes at it in an entirely different way — by appealing to the reader’s heart and imagination. In Fatherless, Brian Gail has done something very unique: Because of his own grasp on the Catholic Faith, he is able to catechize the reader through the lives and dialogue of the characters.  The story lines pull in the reader like a good movie, and then he presents the truth.  He does this in a way that readers learn and self-evaluate at the same time.  This, combined with the factual documentation that is provided in the book, is what makes Fatherless such a great evangelization tool.

Cheryl: Why did you choose to specifically bring Fatherless to HLI and what do you hope to accomplish with this book; what message do you want to deliver in a new way? And do you see this as the start of a major development of Catholic fiction in the future?

Fatherless is a perfect fit for HLI’s Mission, which is why we are so pleased to be the exclusive publisher and distributor.  Reader feedback has shown us that this Catholic novel has been successful in catechizing the reader via a powerful page turner that is very difficult to put down once you begin reading it.  It is our hope that it will further our mission in planting the seeds in the hearts of its readers (or reinforcing in those who already understand), the critical importance of God’s supreme rights over our lives and further reinforce the concepts of protection and respect for Life from before conception until natural death.  We also see Fatherless as a new way to introduce young readers to the truths found in our Catholic Faith.  Each of us is faced with moral dilemmas in our everyday life.  Fatherless successfully displays this along with the consequences of making the wrong choices that are not of God. There is no question that Fatherless has broken new ground and created new interest in “The Catholic Novel”.  We wait with great anticipation for the sequel, Motherless, which is due out in the fall.

“There were many great selections in the running,” said Jenn Giroux, Executive Director of HLI America. “The fact that Fatherless won by such a large scale reveals not only the growing demand and popularity of the novel, but also the hunger for its message which is so desperately needed in the culture today. Looking at the winners from the past few years, it is a statement in itself that Fatherless is the reader’s choice for this Summer.”

2007 Swimming with the Scapulars by Matthew Lickona
2008 Jesus of Nazareth by Pope Benedict XVI
2009 Confessions of St. Augustine
2010 Fatherless by Brian J. Gail

This year the second place winner was No Turning Back by Fr. Donald Caloway.  The third place winner was Introduction to the Devout Life by St. Francis de Sales.

Other books that were considered include:

The Gargoyle Code by Fr. Dwight Longenecker
Doers of the Word by Archbishop Timothy Dolan
Wisdom for Everyday Life from the Book of Revelations by Fr. Richard Veras
John Henry Newman: His Inner Life by Fr. Zeno Van Den Barselaar
The Mystery of Joseph by Fr. Marie-Dominique Philippe, O.P.
Cloud of Witnesses by Fr. George Rutler
Exiles by Ron Hansen
Old Errors and New Labels by Bishop Fulton Sheen
The Promise by Fr. Jonathan Morris

If you would like to order a copy of Fatherless click here.

Congratulations, Brian J Gail.  And thank you for the beautiful gift of Fatherless.

The much anticipated sequel Motherless is due out this fall.