Lauren Winner, the author of the piece, writes:
Lott says:
One reason it's worth paying attention to this phenomenon is that Bret Lott is a fine, fine writer. Another reason is this: He's a true-blue evangelical, one of our own, yet anointed by Oprah—a true-blue evangelical who writes literary fiction that New York takes seriously.
Also, after half a decade of silence—call it post-Oprah writer's block—Bret Lott's just now coming out with three new books. They're all delicious.
"I'm a Christian who's a writer," Lott says. "I'm not a Christian writer, so to speak. If people are going to read my books, they're not going to encounter the traditional salvation scene. C.S. Lewis once said that we don't need more books about Christians; we need more books with Christian values built into them. That's what I'm trying to do in my fiction. I'm not trying to write Christian fiction that preaches to the choir. The choir already knows the drill."
The Christianity in his books is somehow both bold and subtle. "I'm writing for a humanity that needs to know about grace and forgiveness," Lott says.
