In the 70 years since C.S. Lewis wrote The Screwtape Letters, many writers have tried to write a sequel, and many have failed. Richard Platt succeeds with As One Devil to Another (Tyndale). Lewis biographer Walter Hooper notes, "It reads as if C.S. Lewis himself had written it." Platt, born in 1961, has always loved reading but has only started writing during the past decade. He paid the bills by working in and managing restaurants, and recently retired from that. Here are edited excerpts of our interview.
 

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Did you enjoy the restaurant business? It was physically fatiguing but not mentally fatiguing, so I could come home, sit down, and read. All the writers I have come to revere and love, including C.S. Lewis, I discovered on my own.

And you've been married for 30 years? We just celebrated our 30th anniversary. Easily the smartest thing I've ever done in my entire life.

When did you discover Lewis? A friend who was also a Presbyterian minister handed me Surprised by Joy. He's a soft-sell guy. He just said, "This is a great narrative voice, and I think you'll like it."

Had you been surprised by God at that point? No. I took the book home and thought, "Wow, this is really quite something." We had coffee the next week and I said "Hey, this Lewis guy, what else has he written?" He handed me a copy of The Case for Christianity, which ultimately became the first part of Mere Christianity. I took it home. That was the beginning of the avalanche. I started nodding on page four. Lewis' mind works like a fine cutting tool, paring to the hardened kernel of essential truth in the center. You find yourself going A to B, B to C, C to D.

What did you think about God before reading Lewis? I hadn't thought a whole lot. I was the lazy agnostic from a very loving, nondenominational Christian family. I would say "How come this?" and "Why that?" I got those "Because God said so" answers. I stopped asking those questions.

What happened after you read Lewis? I started praying. Then I started thinking about not just understanding my relationship to God, but my obligations. I started thinking: Everybody's been given some abilities. What are my abilities? What can I do? How can I serve? This book is the answer to those years of asking what I could do.

Source: World Magazine | Marvin Olasky