1. What inspired you to bring the Founding Fathers back to life in a novel?

Getting to know the Founders was a life changing experience for me. I wanted to share that experience—not just the information, but the experience. Like many Americans, I also long for smarter and more principled leaders. Fiction is practically the only place to find them these days.

2. What are your favorite characteristics of each Founder?

Franklin’s wit, effortless genius, and the fact that he was born into obscure poverty but became the most famous man in the world. Franklin is the type of guy that never lost his sense of perspective, or sense of humor.

Washington’s integrity is stupefying. He is greater than we think. Billions of humans today might not be free if Washington had the morals of many recent national leaders.

I admire Jefferson’s self-discipline. I think of it when I get the urge to sleep in or stop reading early. For more than a decade, with an obsessiveness almost incomprehensible to an average person, he read from dawn till dusk. Jefferson made himself one of the most learned men in human history through hard work. I adopt a wussified-but-still-intense version of his reading regimen when I am not writing.

3. If you could interview the Founding Fathers, what are some of the things you’re most curious about that weren’t answered in your research?

It’s a little muckrakerish, but I’d like to be talking to Jefferson, drop a Sally Hemings comment out of the blue, and watch his reactions carefully to see if he seemed innocent or guilty.

I’d ask Washington why he sided with Hamilton about implied powers and the National Bank. This is arguably the most significant decision a President ever made, and it appears dubious. Primary sources address this issue, and I know Washington had some strong reasons for choosing the way he did, but I’d still want to hold his feet to the coals a little. . .

If Franklin had updated his scientific knowledge, I would ask him about alternative energy and electrogravitics—two fields that could help humanity solve its resource and population problems. Picking the brain of a first-order scientific genius like Franklin is a rare opportunity.

4. Did growing up in the Washington, DC area have anything to do with, perhaps even a subliminal effect on, your interest in the government?

I didn’t realize how lucky I was to grow up near Washington’s DC until I’d met hundreds of people around the country who have never toured the White House, Capitol, or Washington's Monument. Trips to DC’s sites were a yearly ritual in history class, and by the time I was 10 or 11, we would gripe about having to visit again. Living near a nation's capitol gives you a sense of its heritage, and I think it made me more of a political creature.

DC provided other unique opportunities. In the 80s, when I was just a kid, my Mom dated a CIA employee who brought me gifts from his frequent trips to Central America. Ahh, the questions I would ask him today!

5. What incident, or combination of circumstances, led you to shift from a career based on your college studies of chemical engineering, to writing?

I always possessed a creative side. In my youth I acted in plays, including a Folger Theatre production. In high school, I wrote a play, and a few short stories that make me cringe when I read them now. In college, I wrote fairly controversial feature articles for our paper, movie reviews, op-eds, and I helped write fraternity skits for the annual Winter Carnival. I realize this hardly makes me Hemingway, Brando or Tennessee Williams, but artistic interests were always percolating. Friends consider me both-brained, and were not surprised either.

6. What were your biggest surprises in doing research for your book?

That the Founders differ from the cookie-cutter cliché most Americans envision. We’re told that Jefferson possessed consummate self control, but in letters he angrily lambasts Washington’s Secretary of War Henry Knox (ala Fort Knox). Washington is said to be stern and humorless. He wasn’t Jerry Seinfeld, but in letters he makes some fairly provocative jokes—wondering if an old man has enough "munitions" to pleasure his new and much younger wife, for example.

It’s a cool feeling—reading primary sources. You almost feel like you’re doing something sinful and sneaky. At times I felt like I was privy to thoughts that I shouldn’t really be reading.

One reason I wrote Tempus Fugit is that the picture of the Founders which emerged starkly contrasted the archetypes I had been taught and always accepted. In many ways, the Founders aren’t who I thought they were, or what I expected them to be.

7. What are a couple of your most profound childhood memories?

Before moving to Michigan, I attended the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science & Technology. It was a magnet school--thousands were tested, roughly a hundred accepted. Magnet schools were a component of the Reagan/Bennett education policy, and a Thomas Jefferson teacher was a runner-up in the contest to select a teacher to fly in the space shuttle, so Reagan killed two publicity birds with one stone, and visited.

Our school was shut down for days before, every locker was searched, etc. Though it was 80 degrees, Secret Service agents in front of the stage wore trench coats which seemed (at least to our overactive imaginations) to have conspicuous lumps. As kids, man, were our imaginations churning. What was under those coats?

I was within 30 feet of the President—pretty exciting for a kid. Reagan was truly a great communicator. More importantly, Thomas Jefferson was the first time I didn’t just sit picking my nose bored to all bajeezus, and I thank Reagan for that. And yes, our football team struck fear into opponent's hearts.

My grandfather is another memory. He was a World War II vet. Old school. Man of action, few words, always stressed honesty. Being an idiotic kid, I always asked him about the war, but he would never say much, only that he’d fought the Japanese on the islands, often "one at a time."

I made him pancakes once. He ate them, but seemed put off. Later my grandmother told me he had been trapped on a Pacific island, supplies were cut off, and he ate nothing but pancakes for months. He had refused pancakes from many other people, sometimes a tad rudely, but he ate mine.

Only later, at his funeral, when I saw younger pictures of him as an enormous, musclebound man, and had learned about things like Iwo Jima, Bataan, and hand-to-hand combat, did I fill in the blanks somewhat. I always wondered: how in the hell did it reach the point where millions of men like my grandfather had to traverse the globe killing and dying? What was the underlying cause of war? Viewing it as a kind of political math problem, what was the solution?

My mother is a missing person, so her disappearance would have to count, as would the death of my father from a heroin overdose.

Also, I’m a Redskins fan. My childhood was the glory days of Riggins, the Hogs, and championships won by Emperor Gibbs. Having him back is great--the way a Packers' fan might feel if Lombardi were resurrected.

8. What are your hobbies and interests outside of writing?

Bicycling: Viva de Lance!

Hoops: I’m the sorriest 6’4" basketball player you’ll ever see, but love playing.

Football: My one mindless pastime, watching gels my brain after obsessive bouts of scholarship.

Backpacking: I will never forget Glacier National Park (before the fire)—I remember thinking: the whole world was once this pristine!

Movies: I will make movies at some point.

Reading, Reading, Reading, Learning, Learning, Learning. . .

9. Are you well traveled? Where? Any key experiences to share?

I’ve lived in a few dozen states, but have not seen the world yet. Seeing the regional variations across America, the way one-size-fits-all federal laws often hamper freedoms and create inefficiency at the local level, has strengthened my conviction that the federal system our Founders envisioned was wise. We have a national government, not a federal. This is an important distinction.

10. Sum yourself up in a few sentences

Physically, I resemble an obese Neanderthal. I have a voracious, insatiable, obsessive (insert several more redundant modifiers) desire to learn, a strong idealistic streak, and dual-edged curiosity that needs an on/off button. I believe in personal freedom, and its logical corollary, personal responsibility.

Before I die, I want to see an honest President just once. Someone like George Washington, who stands up, tells me they didn’t bang the intern or lie about the weapons of mass distraction, and I know it’s the truth.

As trite as it sounds, I would like to do something to leave the world a better place than I found it, ideally by contributing to the inexorable advancement of our species.