Sins of Our Fathers by Shawn Lawrence Otto

sins-of-our-fathersJ. W., a small-town banker, has just been caught stealing to support his gambling addiction. He is on the verge of losing his family when his boss gives him one chance to make amends: sabotage the creation of a competing, Native American-owned bank. J. W.’s mark is the favorite son of the local reservation, Johnny Eagle. Eagle knows the odds are stacked against him, but the bank’s success is all he has left. When J. W. moves onto the reservation, he forms an unexpected bond with Eagle’s delinquent son — a relationship that gives him both the access to do Eagle in and hesitation about the plot. A suspenseful, eloquent dive into small-town life that reveals the insidious impact of institutional racism, Sins of Our Fathers presents a story of economic struggle, the moral and spiritual deprivation it produces, and the possibility of redemption we each hold within our grasp.

In Sins of Our Fathers, screenwriter-turned-novelist Shawn Lawrence Otto has pushed his perfectly crafted characters to their limits. The result is a literary tour de force and a psychological thriller that hooked me from the first page and carried me through to its stunning conclusion.
—Joel Surnow, writer and creator of the hit TV series 24

With precise writing and a storyteller’s eye for detail it’s hard to believe this is Shawn Lawrence Otto’s debut novel. After a tragic auto accident claims his son, things begin to add up for banker JW, forcing him to accept an offer of absolution that might just be sending him down the path to something far worse. Sins of Our Fathers is a fine depiction of how all the best intentions can—and do—go very, very wrong. A magnificent debut.
—Urban Waite, author of The Terror of Living

Excellent writing and dynamic characters make Sins Of Our Fathers a page turner that stands above the rest.
—Robert Alexander, author of The Kitchen Boy

Shawn Lawrence Otto is the cofounder and CEO of ScienceDebate.org, the largest political initiative in the history of science. In each of the last two presidential elections, Otto has gotten the candidates for president to discuss the major science problems like climate change, ocean health, energy, research, and more – in an online “debate” at ScienceDebate.org. He is a recipient of the IEEE-USA National Distinguished Public Service Award, and his book Fool Me Twice: Fighting the Assault on Science in America won the Minnesota Book Award.

Otto is also a filmmaker best known for writing and co-producing the Oscar-nominated film House of Sand and Fog. He lives in Minnesota, in a passive solar, geothermal, wind-powered home he designed and built with his own hands. His personal website is at shawnotto.com

Filed Under: Fiction & Humor Tagged With: ,

Fool Me Twice by Shawn Lawrence Otto

“Whenever the people are well informed,” Thomas Jefferson wrote, “they can be trusted with their own government.”

But what happens in a world dominated by complex science? Are the people still well-enough informed to be trusted with their own government? And with less than 2 percent of Congress with any professional background in science, how can our government be trusted to lead us in the right direction?

Will the media save us? Don’t count on it. In early 2008, of the 2,975 questions asked the candidates for president just six mentioned the words “global warming” or “climate change,” the greatest policy challenge facing America. To put that in perspective, three questions mentioned UFOs.

Today the world’s major unsolved challenges all revolve around science. By the 2012 election cycle, at a time when science is influencing every aspect of modern life, antiscience views from climate-change denial to creationism to vaccine refusal have become mainstream.

Faced with the daunting challenges of an environment under siege, an exploding population, a falling economy and an education system slipping behind, our elected leaders are hard at work … passing resolutions that say climate change is not real and astrology can control the weather.

Shawn Lawrence Otto has written a behind-the-scenes look at how the government, our politics, and the media prevent us from finding the real solutions we need. Fool Me Twice is the clever, outraged, and frightening account of America’s relationship with science—a relationship that is on the rocks at the very time we need it most.

S H A W N L A W R E N C E O T T O is the cofounder and CEO of Science Debate 2008, the largest political initiative in the history of science. He is also an award winning screenwriter best known for writing and coproducing the Academy Award–nominated House of Sand and Fog. He lives in Minnesota.

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