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About James
A Writer Who Came the Long Way Round
James Hardesty spent his working life in business and government service, with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a master’s in public administration behind him. Through all of it he kept reading: history, literature, religion, mythology, archaeology, and the old stories that keep turning up in new clothes.
In 2012 he published Stranglehold: Breaking the Death-grip of Liberalism, a collection of essays on the political questions of the day and what to do about them. Then came 2020, the lockdowns, and the long quiet months in which he wrote the first draft of a novel. That novel became The Epic of Elquetumba.
It runs against the grain of contemporary culture and makes no apology for it. James writes about reverence for God and the worth of masculine virtue, two things he believes the modern world has stopped taking seriously, and he goes straight at the controversies most novels step around.
Books Published
Chapters in the Epic
Countries in the Story
Years in the Making
In His Words
Why I Wrote This Book
It was too good a story not to tell.
I wanted to bring respect for God back into art and into the mainstream. I wanted to ask what faith costs a man in a corrupt world, to give voice to masculine virtue, and to offer a testimony in the form of a story.
About the Book
Not in the usual sense. It takes God seriously and it is built on Scripture, but it is not squeaky clean. The book has an edge, and it goes to dark places on purpose, because that is where faith gets tested.
Adult literary fiction with an epic scope and a supernatural current running underneath. There is spiritual warfare in it, but it is not horror. If you read Ted Dekker, Frank Peretti or John Connolly, you will feel at home.
Elquetumba is the mountain brooding over the story, and it seems to stir in answer to what Tristan does and endures.
No. Readers who know them will catch the echoes, from Circe to Ithaca, but the story stands on its own.
James wrote the first draft during the 2020 lockdowns, then spent the following years revising it, including a full editorial analysis, before it was published.