Sunday, September 21, 2003
Eva Marie Everson doesn't shy away from dark issues.
ORLANDO SENTINEL
In 1997, when Eva Marie Everson pitched a Christian publisher on an inspirational novel about a woman who had been a stripper, a drug addict and a "kept woman," she knew it would be a tough sell.
But the Casselberry, Fla., writer and Bible teacher didn't anticipate the executive's response: Would Everson consider changing the main character to a librarian?
"A librarian?" the 46-year-old former nurse recalls with a laugh. "What would she be redeemed from? Overdue books?"
Ultimately, Everson found another Christian publisher -- Ohio-based Promise Press/Barbour -- which took the manuscript and did so well with the resulting book, "Shadow of Dreams," that two sequels followed.
Together with "Summon the Shadows" and the recently released "Shadows of Light," there are 30,000 copies of the trilogy in print.
This success, although modest by commercial publishing standards, puts Everson on the cutting edge of more realistic Christian fiction.
Activist
While literary expos & eacute;s of the adult-entertainment business might have been enough activism for some writers, Everson is not content to attack the sex industry with her pulp fiction alone.
She also has welcomed a former exotic dancer and her child into the Everson household, and helped the woman complete her escape from that world. In addition, Everson has joined a national effort to help parents prevent their daughters from drifting into a life that "sucks away at your soul."
Everson's novels -- two of which were written with the assistance of Georgia financial journalist G.W. Francis Chadwick -- draw on one of the oldest staples of Western literature. A beautiful, young daughter is bereft, and her world is shaken, when her loving and indulgent father dies suddenly. Katie Morgan runs away and falls into misadventure, first in Atlanta and then in New York. A small-time gangster sets her up in an apartment. Ultimately, a kindly and wealthy patron arranges for her to come to work for his uptown law firm, where she meets and ultimately marries the man of her dreams, Ben Webster.
Subtlety
Along the way, she finds strength in God, but not in a heavy-handed way. In fact, there is no mention of religion until page 80 of the first book -- well after Katie stops stripping -- and relatively little thereafter.
"I didn't want to preach," Everson explains. "I wanted something that could reach the masses."
Some skeptics suspect that anti-porn crusaders, watchdogs and researchers get a secret thrill from their work. Everson says this was definitely not the case with her.
"I can do research into a very dark world without going into it," she says. "As a Christian woman and a married woman, that was very important."
The author of half a dozen nonfiction books, Everson writes her novels in a converted bedroom in her suburban home, which backs up to a golf course. She conducted 50 interviews with people in the sex industry, online and by telephone, in addition to 10 face-to-face conversations, Everson says.
She did feel obligated to pay at least one visit to a south Georgia strip club. Though she was embarrassed, Everson says she is glad she made the one-hour visit.
Support from other writers
One place Everson went for support while working on the first book was her Longwood church. She brought sections of the first novel to the Writers Critique Group of the Northland Church in Orlando, where other members were not put off by the book's premise.
Members of the group realized there would be resistance to this aspect of her writing, recalls Greg Kriefall, whose day job is with Campus Crusade for Christ.
"But we encouraged her to stay with it, because it was such an integral part of the story," he says. "I trusted that she would do what was necessary."
Everson's approach to fiction seems to have tapped a vein in the Christian market. For a first-time novelist, she is a clear success, with a burgeoning, if unlikely, fan base.
Wynell Davis, 75, is a retiree in the small town of Newnan, Ga. When she saw a blurb saying the novel involved a former exotic dancer involved in a battle with the operator of an escort service, she was intrigued.
"Ordinarily, you didn't talk about that in Christian circles," she says. "You didn't dare mention sex. Everything was covered over."
Dealing with realism
Like everyone else, Christians grapple with issues such as homosexuality, drugs and out-of-wedlock children, Davis says.
"I think Christian readers are more apt to accept the realism in life, instead of 'pretend,'" she says. "We've got problems in our families just like everyone else, that you don't ordinarily read about in Christian fiction."
At Long's Christian Books & amp; Music Store in Orlando, desk supervisor Dave Everson -- who is not related to the author -- is not surprised that the Shadows novels have sold well.
"Christian fiction can be bland," he says.
That may be changing, according to Phyllis Tickle of Publishers Weekly.
"One of the things we've observed is that publishers are daring to take on a bit more realism," she says, although there may be another roadblock.
Advice for publishers
Novelist Ted Dekker, who collaborated on two works of fiction with the late Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, has already gone down the path to realism. The Christian market can be as sophisticated in its buying and reading habits as secular consumers, he says -- a lesson religious writers and publishers need to learn.
"It's not so much a matter of edginess, but of realism," says Dekker, author of crossover Christian novels "Blink" and "Three."
"Ironically, when we strip the realism out of our fiction, we defeat its very purpose," he said.
Donna Kehoe is the administrator for the Christy Awards, which recognize excellence in Christian fiction. She agrees with Dekker's assessment.
Publishers "might be catching up with the mission and call of being an evangelical Christian, and she [Everson] might be on the forefront."