Best-selling author Anne Rice has always been fascinated by first-hand accounts of near-death experiences. But it was the story of a Fort Thomas man, Howard Storm, that motivated her not only to write a foreword for his new book, but to become an advocate for its publication.
"I think he's one of the most important mystics of our time," Rice said in a phone interview from her suburban New Orleans home.
Storm's story, as told in "My Descent into Death: A Second Chance at Life" (Doubleday; $14.95), begins on June 1, 1985, when he nearly died in a Paris hospital after suffering a tear in his intestines.
While his near-death experience story includes being embraced by light like many others, it doesn't begin that way. Storm, an atheist at the time, vividly describes being taken by evil beings and literally ripped apart before praying to God for help.
"I called up to Jesus and he came literally and healed me and loved me and led me out of that place of darkness," Storm said.
That experience changed his life from that of a 38-year-old art professor at Northern Kentucky University to a minister at Zion United Church of Christ in Norwood.
In April, he will leave the church to become a full-time missionary in Belize.
For years after the 1985 experience, he spoke to groups and appeared on television programs, including the "Oprah Winfrey Show," "48 Hours" and programs on the Discovery Channel and Christian cable networks.
"I was doing my talk and getting a bit burned out. It was emotionally draining, reliving the experience," Storm said. "Fifteen years after it happened, God gave me absolutely clear signs that it was time to write it down."
His story was first published in England in 2000.
"I tried to put myself in the time and place that it happened," said Storm, now 58. "A lot of people think I'm pretty crazy. But I don't just believe in Jesus Christ, heaven and hell. I know Jesus Christ, heaven and hell."
Storm's book, a revised version of the one published in England, was released in the United States last month. Storm begins a five-city book tour next Tuesday when he appears with Rice in New York on NBC's "Today."
Though they've never met, the two have been pen pals since 2003, exchanging e-mails and discussing spirituality.
"I was extremely flattered. She's somebody important. I'm a nobody," Storm said of his reaction to that first e-mail from Rice. "It really renewed my worth with my wife and my daughter.''
Rice, best known for her Vampire Chronicles series, which formed the basis of the film "Interview with the Vampire," learned of Storm's near-death story when she saw him on TV.
"Each time I saw him, I was more intrigued," Rice said. "It was obvious something had happened to him."
Rice, a devout Catholic since 1998, read Storm's earlier book at the time her husband of 41 years, Stan, was diagnosed with a brain tumor that took his life four months later.
"It gave me a great amount of comfort," Rice said. "It's not all fire and brimstone. The thing that gives me hope is that Howard got out of that place."
She contacted Storm, and in their correspondence, he asked for help finding a U.S. publisher for the book. Within three days, he had one: Michelle Rapkin, vice president of religious books for Doubleday.
"As soon as I realized Howard was a United Church of Christ minister, I was very interested,'' Rapkin said. "Here was Anne Rice, best-selling author, and she loves this book by a Protestant minister. I wanted to know, 'How can this be?' "
Rapkin said she initially had concerns whether a book about a near-death experience would work as a traditional religious book.
"I read it, and I was mesmerized," she said. "It was so clear to me that his experience was so different from any near-death experience I had read about."
The book went into a second printing before its release, a sign that sales are expected to be strong, Rapkin said.
"This is a real phenomenon that has a lot of us really excited here at Doubleday."
Rapkin credits Rice's involvement with the book for much of the buzz its receiving. But Rice feels Storm's story would have been told even without her help.
"If I hadn't helped him, something or someone else would have," she said. "Getting his message to a large audience would be a wonderful thing."
Sharing that message is what motivated Storm to write the book.
"I give you my story in the hope that you will find, or more fully appreciate, where God is in your story, " Storm writes in the book. "You and I are very special in God's eyes. God wants us to live in joy, peace, hope, and love. God wants us to come home."
If Rice's name enables him to reach a broader audience, so be it.
"My hope is that my audience is not all the good Christians out there; they already believe. My hope is to reach those who don't know and who are lost."