A.P. Andes wrote his first story at the age of six and has been writing ever since. In his twenties he encountered the films of Russian masters Andrei Tarkovsky and Elem Klimov, which supplied the essential tools a novelist needs to create stunning narrative: glorious beauty and tragedy, unforgettable characters, and the powerful impress for a reader of living through a story rather than merely watching it pass by.

In 1981, Andes discovered the astounding early medieval life of Pope Joan. He began a historical novel about Joan that percolated for decades but did not find real expression until 2006, as he was finishing law school. He realized Joan was not only a towering presence in her own right, but a galvanizing lodestar for the figure of consensus and erasure that is Western history.

Andes embarked on his law career and over time transitioned into a more flexible professional setup that allows him to nurture his family relationships and his writing. Freud’s maxim on life being all about love and work seems truer than ever.

A.P. Andes lives in the Chicago area with his wife and twin daughters. His writing has been published in The Iowa Review and is informed by his love of philosophy, postmodernism, and especially European literature, cinema, and history. His four books of genre-bending historical-mystery fiction, John the Angelic, Uproar and Heresy, Falling through the Roof of Hell, and The Annihilating Hero, form the quartet, The Latecoming West.