Was it difficult to make the heroic and martyred Bonhoeffer a multi-dimensional, flawed, and complex human being?
DG: No, because I don’t believe in such things as paragons of virtue or evil monsters. I never saw him as a paragon of virtue; I am predisposed to see complexity. I saw the flaws and was more interested in the complexities and layers that made him a real human being. As you begin to read about and get to know someone, you find the strange, quirky stuff that makes them distinct and interesting as individuals. Whether your subject is St. Francis of Assisi or Martin Luther or Dietrich Bonhoeffer, you don’t have to dig too deep to find the flaws, those are the things that interest readers and make people tick. Reading about a man such as Bonhoeffer being depressed and having trouble sleeping are details that make him human and interest me as a reader and writer. KF: Is the Gauley Mountain industrial disaster which claimed the lives of Fred Bishop and countless workers based on a real incident? DG: Yes. It is based on the Hawks Nest industrial disaster, an incident that was well-known in th
