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D. Grant Fitter

Goodreads Author

Born

Canada

Genre

Historical Fiction

Member Since

March 2012

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/dgrantfitter

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D. Grant Fitter is a citizen of North America. Born in Ontario, Canada and educated in Colorado, USA, he is convinced he was Mexican in his previous life. How else to explain such a strong attraction to all things Mexican, including his wife, Rita.
His business career includes long stints of work in Mexico City before yielding to a strong urge to pursue a livelihood in freelance journalism for seventeen years. Meanwhile, Fitter's Mexico roots continued to call.
The Vatican Must Go is his second novel set in Mexico. His first, City of Promises, which is also available on Amazon, takes place in 1940s Mexico City and Veracruz during the glorious years of Mexico's Golden Age. He likes to say you can't know Mexico until you know Veracruz and Mex ...more

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Popular Answered Questions

How do you get inspired to write?

D. Grant Fitter The Vatican Must Go is a fictionalized account that explores what might have brought all out war against a government attempt to stamp out Catholic Ch…moreThe Vatican Must Go is a fictionalized account that explores what might have brought all out war against a government attempt to stamp out Catholic Church control over the soul of Mexico.

What inspired you to write this novel?

First, let me tell you that from the first time I set foot in Mexico, I found it an absolutely fascinating place. It is a country full of contradictions. It is an unlikely mixture of instruments that somehow plays a harmonious tune. So, being a person who wants to know how a clock works as much as wanting to know what time it is, found it challenging, not so much to adapt to, as to understand how it ticks.

So, in that pursuit, there is a trove of interesting stories to be told, and City of Promises my first novel challenge, covered eight years in the 1940s, a decade acknowledged as “Mexico’s Golden Age”. Many of the cultural accomplishments of the Golden Age are now cultural traditions held tightly by all Mexicans. That work also led to traces of mysterious talk of a hidden piece of history referred to as the “Cristiada” and sometimes called the “Cristero War”.

Going back to when I first arrived in Mexico, I knew of it as a staunchly Catholic country but was puzzled by the absence of priests and nuns in public. I later learned that by law, the Catholic religious habit was only allowed to be worn in the privacy of church property. This, in the late 1960s, of all things, but it was a thought filed away somewhere in my mind.

There are all kinds of interesting subjects an historical fiction author can uncover in Mexico, where inspiration abounds. However. for me, the tricky part is envisioning a sound approach angle to take in building those subjects into a story.

Over time, accumulations of scarcely spoken religious persecution stories led me to research information on the matter. Because the Mexican government and the official history curriculum does not recognize the conflict took place, there is not much in the way of readily available material. Eventually, while searching Vatican papers, I landed on one French born, Vatican scholar who had recently written and filed a paper on the Mexican Catholic rebellion, in which he speculated upon US based Masonic Order complicity.

I had found the story building morsel I needed to make a religious war in Mexico palatable to a broader audience.

Add to the morsel that during my college days in southern Colorado I had come to appreciate the derelict Ludlow massacre monument site, the abandoned mining camps, and knew people who lived through the coal field strike breaking terror referenced in the early going of the book. Gathering the ideal characters from Colorado to form the mercenary force was easy. You never know when listening to old timer conversations might come in handy.

So, directly to your question, when it comes to writing a tale of Mexico, inspiration comes built in.
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Combine Editions
D. Grant Fitter’s books

Average rating: 4.26 · 27 ratings · 12 reviews · 4 distinct works

	City of Promises really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2013 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Vatican Must Go it was amazing 5.00 avg rating — 6 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Vatican Must Go: A Mexico Story of the Explosive Clash Between Government Power and the Glory of Faith. 4.33 avg rating — 3 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Vatican Must Go: An American Tale of Government Power and The Glory of Faith 0.00 avg rating — 0 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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3 posts
D. Grant Fitter's Blog: Book Fillets

One of the Dons

There’s a lot of serious drinking going on in City of Promises. That’s the way it is in Mexico. Mexicans work hard when they’re working, they play hard when it is time and party hard when they’re partying, which is rather often. It is what I like most about the Mexicans. They tend to put so much enthusiasm into whatever it might be that fits the mood of the moment.

Anyway, this blog post is about a Read more of this blog post »

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Published on March 11, 2013 21:08 • Tags: city-of-promises, drinking, mexico, tequila

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D.’s Quotes

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
― Rachel Carson

tags: destruction, ecology, reality, universe, wonder

2609 likes

“The apartment below mine had the only balcony of the house. I saw a girl standing on it, completely submerged in the pool of autumn twilight. She wasn't doing a thing that I could see, except standing there leaning on the balcony railing, holding the universe together.”
― J.D. Salinger, A Girl I Knew

tags: life, love, people, universe

137 likes

“Time heals everything, that’s what everyone says. Wounds heal and leave only scars behind. But some wounds run too deep to heal, and pierce the deepest layers of one’s soul. They stay there unhealed and ready to ooze blood at the first sign of grief.”
― Neena H. Brar, Tied to Deceit

tags: grief, grief-and-loss, grief-quotes, heartache, scars, scars-of-the-past, time, time-quotes, wound, wounds

11 likes

“You know how your intuition warns you about someone, but you bury it because it shows the darkness underneath which you wish to ignore; the bright and shiny on the outside is so inviting, you don’t want to look anywhere else?”
― Neena H. Brar, Tied to Deceit

tags: deception-quotes, intuition, intuition-quotes, warning-signs

6 likes