And God Said, "Billy!": A Novel

"And God Said, 'Billy!' is like nothing I've ever read, Amazing! Only Frank Schaeffer could write a novel that details the hilarious absurdity of Christian Fundamentalism only to then enter the confounding beauty and redemptive mystery of Christian liturgical transition... A novel for anyone who dares to walk away from the nonsense of fundamentalism and toward a more meaningful and mysterious Christianity -- and who wants to laugh the whole damn time." -Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber author of Pastrix: the Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint

"Schaeffer's gifts as a novelist are more than comic his writing has a deeper river flowing through it, one that is sensual and full of true grace." -- Andre Dubus III author of House of Sand and Fog

From the New York Times bestselling author of Crazy For God...

"And God Said 'Billy!' is laugh-out loud funny from page one. It's downright insightful throughout and takes readers deep into the shallow psyche of a sincere Charismatic-Evangelical whose God fails him. That failure turns out, through a hilarious series of tragic-comic reversals, to be - let's just say something close to miraculous. I love this novel." -- Brian D. McLaren, author/speaker/blogger

"Honest, humorous and sure to rankle those who believe that being human means being certain." -- Kevin Miller director of "Hellbound?" the movie

€œWhen the family business is religion, it is especially perilous. To millions of evangelical Christians, the Schaeffer name is royal, and Frank Schaeffer is the reluctant, wayward, traitorous prince. His crime... is turning his back on Christian conservatives.€ The New York Times

"Frank Schaeffer exposes the insanity and the corruption of what has become a powerful and frightening force in American politics... As someone who has made redemption his work, he has, in fact, shown amazing grace.€-- Jane Smiley Pulitzer Prize winner and author of A Thousand Acres

Back Cover Synopsis:

And God Said, "Billy!" is a darkly comic coming-of-age story written by the master story teller that author Andre Dubus III hailed as the funniest American writer since Mark Twain. The story is set in the 1980s and is about Billy, a young fundamentalist Christian who feels called to go to Hollywood to make "God's movie." But everything goes off the rails when he accepts a job to direct a soft-porn slasher/exploitation film in apartheid-era South Africa. He makes this "It's a deal not a movie" picture even though he has to bust the US entertainment industry's anti-apartheid sanctions in hopes his "worldly movie" will be "used by God" as a "stepping stone" to making his own divinely sanctioned "End Times" picture. Billy loses his fundamentalist faith, his film career, his family and more but he finds a strange kind of peace in a most unexpected place...