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Throughout my high school and college years I was fortunate to have a number of literature professors who planted the seeds that someday might sprout a novel or two.
After graduating from the University of California-Davis in 1970 I began a 30-year career in business insurance and risk management.
Now "retired," I have the luxury to pursue that life-long dream of being a published author.
Over the years, I've dabbled in a number of genres and finally found the “it” that I enjoy and that employs my interests and experience.
For the past fifteen years I have been active in Church ministry. One ministry in particular married an interest in history (Roman imperial period) with the history of early Christianity. The overarching questions I often asked were: What was it like to be one of the first Christians? And, why would a "pagan" get involved with or practice this radically strange religion? How can we, twenty centuries later, relate?
Four years ago, I began this project—a series of historical-fiction novels I call Burnt Offerings—delving into this period of Roman and Christian history, entering the world, the culture, the lives of the first Christians and their Roman neighbors. A secondary purpose was to (re)introduce some of the important Christian figures who were so instrumental in promoting (evangelizing) and defining what Christianity was and would become.
This first book, The Peregrine's Odyssey, begins our journey into this early period of our shared history of western civilization.
Reviewed by Lois Henderson for Readers' Favorite
Immersed in the world of ancient Rome, Michael Kleinfall’s epic, The Peregrine’s Odyssey, tells the story of the deep fraternal bond that develops between Gaius Segusiavus, “the Peregrine,” and Ignatius the Younger, both from wealthy merchant families, which outlasts even death. This work of historical fiction relates as a central thread how Ignatius converts from Judaism to a profound faith in the Christian religion, while the Romano-Gallic Gaius, his comrade-in-arms, draws ever closer to him, despite their religious differences. The sociocultural depth of the world that Kleinfall describes in astounding detail, embracing the entire ambit of the world surrounding the Mare Nostrum (the Mediterranean Sea), is thrilling in the emotional charge and complexity that the author imparts to his vast panoply of characters, stretching across the generations.
Intended for an extremely broad audience, Kleinfall’s The Peregrine’s Odyssey should have a special interest for young adults. Read as a gripping adventure story, with its overwhelming momentum and drive towards the unexpected, the hoped-for and the feared, the novel should prove pleasing to those in search of an entertaining and engrossing read. That it has an inescapable deeper meaning for those who wish to look more deeply is unavoidable, though, whether you choose to revel in the historical accuracy of the text (supplemented by the Segusiavus family tree, numerous maps and black-and-white shaded drawings of the cities in which the action takes place, an extensive afterword, providing background information as to various key aspects of Roman and Early Christian life, detailed lists of the principal and other notable characters, and a multi-paged glossary), or to probe its deeper spiritual significance. I especially love the fact that The Peregrine’s Odyssey is only the first of an entire series of works, Burnt Offerings, that is destined for publication, all in due course.
