The Road to Omaha [antikvár]

PREFACEA number of years ago, the undersigned wrote a növel en-titled The Road to Gandolfo. It was based on a staggering premise, an earthshaking concept that should have pos-sessed the thunder of the ages and you don't hardly come upon them things no more. It was to be a tale told by demons, the legions of Satan marching out of hell to commit a heinous crime that would outrage the world, a mortal blow to all men and women of faith regardless of their specific religion, for it would show how vulnerable are the great spiritual leaders of our times. Stripped to its essentials, the story dealt with the kidnapping of Rome's Pontiff, a true man of God and of ordinary people every-where, Popé Francesco the First.Are you with me? I mean, it's really heavy, isn't it? Itshould have been, but it wasn't____Something happened.Poor Fool, the novelist, peeked around the edges, glimpsed the flip side of the coin, and to his eternal condemnation he began to giggle. That's no way to treat a staggering premise, a magnificent obsession! (Not too shabby a title, by the way.) Unfortunately, Poor Fool could not help him-self; he began to think, which is always dangerous for a storyteller. The what-if syndrome came into play.