The Boy Who Talked With God by Ned McIntosh

About the book

This is both a mystery and a love story. The mystery surrounds the tragic death of Lt. Cmdr. Jim Abecrombie, a Navy pilot, leaving an attractive 36 year-old widow, and a son, traumatized by his death, the night after he gave Michael a set of alphabetic blocks and stared to teach him how to spell his name. He is rendered illiterate -- unable to spell, read or write -- but alert, cheerful, bright and musically talented, otherwise. He is diagnosed with savant syndrome, and doomed to a life of care-giving by his mother. However, he reports dreams in which he talks with God, who promises a miracle that will make him like other boys. He can't understand why adults think that is strange, since his mother tells him Bible stories about God talking to people in their dreams, and performing miracles. That sets up a competition between faith healing and psychiatric healing, and the love story between Meg and the boy's psychiatrist, John. When the boy is about to be institutionalized, he shows his mother God taught him in a dream how to spell his name with the alphabet blocks his dad gave him; the miracle God promised. The reader is left to speculate on whether God or the psychiatrist was responsible for the healing, while Michael celebrates his cure and Meg and John their engagement.

About the author

Ned McIntosh has had a varied writing career, in corporate marketing, journalism, freelance writing and teaching. His first published book, "Managing Little League Baseball," followed the writing advice, "write about what you know." With six children, all involved in youth sports, McIntosh knew about what he wrote in 20+ years of coaching his children's teams. When he discovered no books to help volunteer coaches in Little League baseball, he wrote one. Now in its second edition, "Managing Little League Baseball," published by the Contemporary Books division of McGraw-Hill, has sold over 100,000 copies, and continues to fill a need annually, since a new generation of youngsters and parent/coaches enter the sport of over 3 million children each year. Three more books followed on youth sports, all published by McGraw-Hill: "Little League Baseball Drills and Strategies," "The Little League Guide to Coaching Tee Ball," and "The Baffled Parents' Guide to Coaching Youth Indoor Soccer."

For over 20 years McIntosh worked in marketing, where his writing included advertising, product brochures, press releases and training aids. When his company was acquired by a much larger corporation, he was given the choice of an early retirement package, and seized the opportunity to launch a full-time freelance writing career.

In three years as a journalist, McIntosh wrote over 150 feature articles in The Virginian Pilot, the daily newspaper serving the Norfolk/Virginia Beach market. In the genre of fiction, he has won over 20 awards in national and regional writing contests. In 2001, he won three first place prizes: "Tale of the Left-handed Flounder:;" in the national contest of PAWS (Professional and Amateur Writers' Association;" "The Witch's Magic Curse," first place in the 21st Annual Christopher Newport University Conference and Contest; and his "Digging to China," first place and "best of show" (the best of five first place winners in five genres at the 19th Annual Chesapeake Writers' Conference; in 2003, his short story, "Alfalfa Plays Baseball," won first place in the 23rd Annual Christopher Newport University Conference and Contest.

For the past three years, Ned McIntosh has served as a part-time Instructor for "The Institute of Children's Literature," providing graduate-level courses in creative writing, leaving him time to devote to his own writing. His professional affiliations include SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators.)

The Boy Who Talked With God is Ned McIntosh's second novel, a contemporary mystery about Michael, a boy whose Navy pilot father had started to show him, with a gift of alphabet blocks, how to spell his name. The next day the father is killed in a tragic plane crash, and the boy is so traumatized he is rendered illiterate, unable to spell, read or write. He has dreams in which God promises to create a miracle to heal him. The dual attempts of faith healing and psychiatry are applied, and when he is healed the reader has to decide whether it was a miracle or psychiatry that cured him.