Press Release for Saving Erasmus

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Carol Showalter

Tel: (508) 255-4685 x 356

cshowalter@paracletepress.com



This hilarious novel of ideas will challenge

your assumptions about community, love, death,

and what might one day

emerge from your washing machine.




An Original Voices pick at Borders for April and May

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Steven Cleaver’s absorbing debut novel, Saving Erasmus (Paraclete Press / Release date April 2, 2007 / Hardcover / 220 pages / $21.95), is It’s a Wonderful Life meets the Angel of Death—and a total romp about a change of heart and a way to faith.

Andrew Benoit, young big-city seminary grad, is herded to a tiny parish in the town of Erasmus. It turns out to be just one week before the Angel of Death threatens to work fierce power in the town, and the flood gates open on Andrew’s life. What ensues is a deadly fun, deadly serious, personal, and sometimes romantic exploration of what it means to be a prophet. Along the way, young Andrew takes forays into the history of American cinema, lives of the medieval saints, the Apocalypse, the Angel of Death, and one curious group of contemporary mystics who meet at the Instant Coffee Cup—Harpo, Curly, Mae, Lucy and Lou—keepers of the secret of the Incorruptible body of the Saint Annie Cotter, whose tomb is guarded by Simon, the Knight Templar.

Saving Erasmus unfolds to reveal a modern Jonah, trying to save a small town and finding out that he himself is the one who needs saving.

“Saving Erasmus had me hooked from the front page. Clever, witty, and profound, everything a good book should be,” praises Philip Gulley, author of the Harmony series.


About the Author

Steven Cleaver combines a writer’s curiosity with a life-long passion for faith. He is a published poet and a graduate of the Earlham School of Religion. His poems have won an Indiana State Award and he has taught at the Omega Institute. Cleaver, who grew up on a farm, lives in New York City where he manages a non-profit, negotiates mass transit, and seeks the best cup of coffee. This is his first novel, and he owns his own washing machine.

Visit www.savingerasmus.com for more information about Steven Cleaver and for details on how Cleaver will be visiting with book clubs across the U.S. from April to October, 2007.




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Thank you.