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Thank God For The Sinners:
Award-Winning Filmmaker and Author Eric Magun Releases Debut Novel in Fiction
By Andrea Marvin
Author Eric Magun has spent a significant portion of his career living overseas, which shaped him as a person, creative, and writer.
His experiences as a business executive living in China and parts of Southeast Asia catalyzed ideas for his debut novel, Thank God For The Sinners, a dark, gritty thriller that incorporates international business intrigue into the plot.
The story is told through the main character, Rick Price, a troubled soul leading a secretive life as a double agent in China. He finds himself in a panicked situation after discovering a dead body in his hotel room and must act fast to protect his innocence and save his own life.
Readers are taken along for a suspenseful journey as they get to understand the main character and the cycle of dysfunction he can’t seem to escape. From the flashbacks of his traumatic childhood to his battles with addiction and anger, parts of the character’s struggles are relatable, even in his darkest moments.
During an interview, Author Eric Magun explains how the book will resonate with people who enjoy thrillers or who have worked in business overseas. He describes the novel as fast-paced, with cinematic storytelling - a writing style influenced by his time as a director and screenwriter for films.
He also tells us how his love for punk rock is woven throughout the book and how the music genre is even tied to his overall writing process. Instead of seeking a quiet space while writing, Magun prefers to turn his music on full blast to get his creativity flowing.
For other writers and dreamers out there, his advice is to leave inhibition behind and go all in!
Tell me a little bit about your new book.
My debut novel is a gritty psychological thriller, Thank God For The Sinners. It follows my main character, Rick Price, who's a psychopath and a tortured soul.
He struggles to balance his high-stakes career while at the same time concealing his secret life as a clandestine double agent. And the whole story falls apart when a Chinese prostitute dies in his hotel room. He's hurled into a frantic fight to prove his innocence and scrambles to save his soul.
Have you always had an interest in thrillers, or how did the plot come about?
I spent the majority of my life overseas working internationally as a global executive and spent a significant amount of time in China during the late 1990s and early 2000s. From there, I worked in parts of Southeast Asia: Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines.
I've always been working in these new, emerging countries, and have been the one of the first boots on the ground over there. So, a lot of sordid and unbelievable stories have accumulated throughout my 30-plus years of living and working overseas.
After having spent a long period of time in foreign countries, I had the opportunity to lift up the veil of what's really going on and seeing the uglier side of life, I was able to come up with a character for this novel that I thought would be very interesting.
The theme is what happens when you send a dangerous man to do dangerous work, where one is always harboring concerns to about their health and safety, and doesn’t quite know what is waiting for them around the corner. So, that was always the start in my mind, to have a character in high-pressure work overseas.
The main character is a double agent for both the United States and China, so he's got that stress in his life. He also suffers from a lifetime of trauma and abuse, which ultimately affects his decisions.
I decided to put him in uncomfortable situations far away from home, in a country like China, where there is little justice, which he must figure out how to navigate in order to survive.
As far as the development of the main character, is there a little bit of you in there, mixed in with experiences you've had overseas? Or situations you heard of happening?
In a way, definitely. The main character is like my sinister alter ego. I took a lot of experiences from my own life, stories that I've heard, and things that I've seen, and turned the volume from ten to eleven and gave it just an amazing surreal and dramatic effect.
Every chapter in the book is something personal that I've been through that's been magnified or embellished for the sake of fiction. It’s been something either lived by me or has been told to me; these are stories that are burning inside of me to be told.
But at the same time, I wanted the main character, Rick, to be undeniably human. I wanted him to be this antihero, a man with tragic flaws that readers can recognize.
I want readers to relate to him, even the darkest parts of him, and perhaps see a bit of themselves in him.
Since Thank God For The Sinners is relatable on a human level, who do you think your primary audience is? People who enjoy thrillers?
That's an interesting question because, besides having international business elements, it's also a dark, violent psychological thriller whose main character is riddled with mental health and addiction issues. But there's a lot of music in the book, too. I call it the first sort of hardcore punk rock, psych thriller out there.
The main character, Rick Price, grew up being a punk like me back in the day. Every chapter is an ode to a punk rock classic song.
You put all 46 chapters together, and it's this incredible snapshot of a punk playlist that I have on Spotify. So, there's a lot of musical references running through here.
When you say my target audience, it is definitely going to be the 35 to 65-year-olds who have either been in a business role overseas or recognize the stories that comes out of that work.
Or it could be people who are really into music, especially punk rock. And definitely people who love dark suspenseful psychological thrillers that grab you from the first page and do not let go until the last.
As you dive deeper into the story, you really get to know the character, Rick Price, through a series of gratuitous flashbacks that go on throughout the entire book.
You get to understand him from his traumatic birth all the way to what has shaped him to where he is today.
So that kind of genre speaks well for me as you get to understand this flawed character and the questionable decisions that he makes. And people who like to be horrified at times and who love suspense are really going to relate to the story.
How did your time in film and writing screenplays shape your writing process? Is your book formatted similarly to a screenplay or a film?
I started out making movies, including an award-winning independent feature film called Toast with the Gods, which was a groundbreaking project in its time back in the mid-90s. I did that before I went into an executive career. And I’ve been writing screenplays and dramatic short stories all along.
I purposefully wrote this book to read like a feature film. It paces quickly, frantically, and fervently. I introduced a whole bunch of unique casting characters, but the descriptions of the book and the way that I lay out the scenes are deliberately very cinematic. And that comes from my years of directing and writing screenplays.
How would you describe that? When you say the novel is very cinematic.
I think of the story telling and overall effect I want it to have on the readers, you know, and fill the pages with superlative descriptions.
I'm taking the reader to faraway lands, to places they'd never been to before, places they never even knew existed.
So, the scene and character descriptions are crucial, where I cover all aspects to make you feel as if you are there, and you're not just looking in from an outside window, but instead you have actually been invited inside.
And I think that's the real goal to writing this is with a lens of making this story into a feature film and then a successful franchise.
What’s your writing process like? Do you write best in the morning, or what type of environment do you prefer?
My writing process is a bit extreme. I tend not to write in silence like I think a lot of people do. Silence is not my friend. It never was. My process is similar to how a professional athlete gears up right before the big game.
I have my music blasting my favorite punk rock songs, and I'm getting pumped up to enter the arena or get on stage. So, I get all psyched up. And then I assault my keyboard and begin my writing process.
I try to write at least two to four hours a day. But I do so in an office that's conducive to the chaos that makes me feel comfortable.
I have my music blaring, my thoughts already organized on various pieces of paper, and like a crime scene, I literally turn the place upside down, beginning to write as fervently as possible.
So, if you open the door, you wouldn't recognize this process as somebody who is quietly sitting down to write a novel.
Oh, I love that! Do you plan to stay with the plot and storyline with a sequel to Thank God For The Sinners?
Thank God For The Sinners is the debut story to what will be my Rick Price series. The main character, Rick Price, will continue his incredible journey in other books and in other interesting places.
I'm already working on my second one called Thank God for the Drugs. This next book will take Rick Price on an amazingly haphazard journey throughout the United States. So, I'm halfway done with that.
I'm also writing the screenplay for Thank God For The Sinners at the same time, so that's been keeping me really busy.
You’re hoping to turn it into a film?
Yes! I have written this with exactly that intent and I have an agent who’s shopping this around to all the major film networks and streaming services. So far, we have had amazing praise, won two book festivals...We have our fingers crossed.
That's great. Since the book is partly based on your personal experience living overseas, tell us a little bit about what that experience was like for you.
Living overseas changes you as a person, definitely for the better. Even though I concentrated on the darker, sinister side that I uncovered from these emerging nations clawing their way out of poverty, it’s really interesting to witness that.
Honestly, I've walked into some cities, some very remote towns in China, where I was the first white American they've ever seen.
When you have those kinds of experiences, they do radically change you as a person. There are many cliches about reading something versus actually being there.
My hope is that this story makes you feel as if you are there in person alongside Rick Price.
And traveling in general is a great thing for people to do. Spending time far away from home, there's a good deal that you experience daily and it’s important to look around and absorb all that you are witnessing.
Even though you miss the ones you love, I think these overseas experiences helps you grow as a person. And certainly, as a writer.
There are so many interesting things you see and take part in, or people that you can speak to, that really help you find a narrative creatively, and better than you could ever imagine yourself.
Many people, and a lot of writers, might tend to shy away from that and perhaps use AI or the internet to try to gather information, rather than being there and experiencing this themselves.
What other advice do you have for creatives or someone considering taking on a passion project?
I can only tell you what works for me, and that is to suspend all doubt and go all in! To talk about passion projects, I'm not a big fan of calling it that. To me, it feels like you’ll get to it when you get to it.
I think if you really want to do something and have something to say, a vision that you want to complete and make a mark somewhere in the world, you have to go in full force. You literally have dive in with both feet in the water, because it doesn't get done without that happening.
Writing is such an intensive and almost lonely field that you really can't dabble in it. You have to go for it. And so, you set up your space and your time.
You conduct this like you would any other business, treating it as a job. And then at the end of the day, you actually have something to feel fulfilled about!
Eric is an award-winning author and filmmaker who first gained honors with his breakout independent feature film, Toast with the Gods, a provocative and surreal reimagining of Homer’s The Odyssey.
Beyond his achievements in film, he has written multiple daring screenplays, short stories, and a bold collection of poetry. Drawing from over three decades as an international business executive, much of it spent in China and Southeast Asia, Eric transforms his extensive global experiences into inspiration for his literary work.
When stateside, he divides his time between the East and West Coasts, immersed in writing. His debut novel, "Thank God For The Sinners" - a dark and gritty psychological thriller - was named Best in Horror - 2025 New York Book Festival and Distinguished Favorite in Thrillers - 2025 NYC Big Book Award.
It’s available for purchase on Amazon and other book purchasing sites.
For more information: https://EricMagun.com
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