(The Catholic Herald) – It’s been an extraordinary publishing sensation – a novel, now in its fourth edition, selling in its thousands, with no advertising or large-scale promotion, and no major distributor. News of Brian Gail’s Fatherless has been spread by word of mouth, copies being ordered and passed on from friend to friend, or through families.
No one could say it’s great literature, or even particularly well written. But it really is a rather gripping read, not least because it has some of the staple ingredients of a good Catholic novel: confessional scenes, great moral tension, a haunting description of an early morning Mass. There is also a moving description of an encounter with Pope John Paul II.
But what gives the book its cutting edge is its essential plot – which revolves around sinister aspects of what the contraceptive pill can do, and the results that it produces in human relationships.
This is a book with a message, and Brian Gail is not ashamed about that. “I wrote this book for my children and my grandchildren, because of what my generation – I’m 62 – has done and the reality that they now face,” he said. “Put bluntly, we allowed pornography into the sanctuary of the home via the TV and then put the Pill in the family medicine cabinet with the pretence that it would be a victimless means of allowing people to do whatever they wanted sexually.
“And then, one person at a time, one family at a time, one Catholic parish at a time, human beings have fallen and been destroyed. This is how empires fall.”
It’s strong stuff. He believes that John Paul II spoke the truth when he used the phrase “culture of death” to describe what has happened to western society. “John-Paul the Great had a way of speaking the truth,” he says: “He was the great prophet of his age and of the age to come.”
The book’s storyline tackles the complications and tragedies of the lives of various interwoven people and families, including that of an industrialist desperate to reveal the truth that has been discovered about a recent product. But there’s more, much more – including an exorcism, a young victim of sexual abuse, and a sordid affair between a man and his secretary…
Gail, a retired businessman, took four months to produce the first version of the book and sent it round to a number of publishers, both secular and Catholic.
“None of them wanted to touch it,” he says. “It did need some more work. I edited it and rewrote it. That took some six to eight months, and that produced the first edition. But then, after that was printed, there had to be some more work, some more cuts. That produced the finished version.” But he never really expected it to be a big success. “I thought it would just go into a ring binder and be passed around my children and grandchildren. But then it just took off.”
The taking-off came through a pro-life organisation One More Soul, through which the book is available on the internet., And now Gail is working on two more books – one to be called Motherless and the third and final part of the trilogy, Childless.
He is blunt. “There is a battle going on. It will get darker and darker. First, we got the Pill and pornography. Then comes in-vitro fertilisation, life in a petri dish. Next comes exploration of trans-species creations, part-human, part-animal, part-computer. We may be seeing the first achievements of that by 2050.”
If all this sounds fairly gruesome, he remains optimistic “When things are really dark, when Satan is really active, that’s when you can expect the Holy Spirit to be active too. And we already see this – as always, he works in small ways, among people who will not be noticed.”
He believes that Pope John Paul’s belief that the Church would see a “new springtime” will prove to be accurate. “You can already see it, in tiny groups, small signs, lots of good things happening. Remember that’s how great things in the Church always occur: a little peasant child in France who sees the Blessed Mother at Lourdes, a nun in Poland who has a vision of the Divine Mercy. Not noticed among the great and powerful at the time.
“The World Youth Days spoke to young people, caught their idealism. John Paul the Great was immensely charismatic, but it was his message that mattered – and the young are turning out in vast numbers for Pope Benedict, who truly speaks to their hearts and minds. They are hungering for the truth, and they relish it when they get it.” Nevertheless, the message of his book and his own deep conviction is that we need to realise the peril of the times. “Europe – what was once Christendom – is in danger of being lost to the faith. Once a nation’s birth-rate falls below 1.7 there can be no recovery. And bishops elsewhere in the world look at Europe and see tragedy – if Europe goes, they will feel orphaned. That is why some of their best men, their best priests, are being sent as missionaries to help.”
Along with other commentators, Gail points to the demographic reality of a rapidly growing Islamic presence in Europe, with large families and a sense of confidence.
Despite the gloom, he exudes a cautious optimism, and doesn’t sound like a nutcase or fanatic.
“We can and should expect the Holy Spirit to be active. But we need to be realistic. One of our great bishops in America, Archbishop Charles Chaput, said in his book, Render to Caesar, that he didn’t think the future of the Catholic Church in America could be guaranteed. He went on to say that there could be no renewal of America without the Catholic Church, and no renewal of the Catholic Church without teaching the truth about the Catholic family and the truth about human life.”
Gail’s own children and grandchildren – he is father of seven and grandfather of five – are all practising Catholics. He and his wife Joan marked their 40th wedding anniversary with a trip to the Holy Land where they renewed their marriage vows at Cana. “But we have also had our share of tragedy – the loss of a child, and, in recent years, my wife’s serious illnesses including a heart attack. It is the faith that holds us constant, and points us to the North Star, keeps us steady.”
Fatherless is available from onemoresoul.com
