Andrew Klavan on writing, prayer and college

Excerpts from Marvin Olasky's interview with Andrew Klavan in World...

What was your experience in college?

I wasted my college years....Because I could write well I was able to fake my way through classes. I barely read any of the books....When I got out of school and it came to me that I had thrown away this precious thing, my education, I read every one of them and gave myself an education....

[On his conversion] So you weren't broken, desperate.

I was reading a novel by the guy I think is probably the best English novelist in the last part of the 20th century, Patrick O'Brien, who writes sea adventures. I was reading in bed and got to the scene where one of the main characters, Maturin, said a little prayer before going to sleep. That's the one thing I'd never tried. So I said a very brief prayer of thanks and it went off in me like a bomb. There are really no words to describe it. I have always thought it was a tribute to the generosity of God that even such a prideful, arrogant little prayer in some sense would be answered....

How did [your conversion] affect your writing?

I was afraid that I would become moralistic and wouldn't get my characters to say the thing they would naturally say. The fascinating thing is that it has turned me into a far, far better observer of the human condition. Now that I have gotten rid of the Freudianism I think I understand people, and it shows in my writing....