Dan Wakefield — American Novelist

Dan Wakefield is an American novelist, journalist and screenwriter. His best-selling novels, Going All the Way and Starting Over were made into feature films. Amongst his other notable works include Island in the City: The World of Spanish Harlem, the pioneering survey of Spanish Harlem, a Puerto Rican settlement in New York and New York in the Fifties, based on the Beat Generation in Greenwich Village, which led to a documentary film in 2001... (wikipedia)

The message of Jesus is summed up partly in the Sermon on the Mount, and partly when he begins his ministry and quotes the passage from Isaiah: 'I have come to set free the prisoners and restore sight to the blind.' And certainly, his mission is also to bring hope. It was to heal people, to befriend the outcast.
I feel as much of a stud as... I can't come up with a metaphor. That's how lacking in studliness I am.
I've always written about social concerns. My first book was about Spanish Harlem.
I wrote a great deal about the Civil Rights Movement when I was writing for 'The Nation' in the '60s, and also for Esquire magazine. Reading the biography of Coffin, it just reminded me that in those days, when you saw the term 'Christian,' it usually meant people for civil rights and for justice.