According to ZENIT, “The Loser Letters” is an epistolary satire of the new atheism, told from the point of view of a worldly, bubbly, American girl in her 20s who’s an enthusiastic convert to godlessness. Beneath the satire, “The Loser Letters” is apologetics for the Facebook generation.

In this interview with ZENIT, Mary Eberstadt, a research fellow at the Hoover Institute in Washington, D.C., discusses her unique approach to apologetics for the Facebook generation in her book “The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism,” recently published by Ignatius Press.
It consists of gushing fan letters she’s writing to the new atheists — Messrs. Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and the rest. Ostensibly, she’s trying to point out the flaws in their movement in the hopes of strengthening it. Of course, as the story unfolds and her own conversion tale develops piece-by-piece, readers realize that something rather different is going on.

As this character — A.F. Christian — points out in the beginning of the book, if the new atheists are right about God and all the believers throughout history are wrong, then God is the biggest “loser” of all time (American slang for someone hopelessly out of touch). Hence she refers to him throughout the book as “Loser,” capital L.

It’s a story that operates on different levels, and I think anyone over 16 or so can read it with interest — especially since it’s satirical from beginning to end. But I had in mind especially readers in their 20s and 30s who may not have been exposed to traditional apologetics before, and who may not realize that there’s a long and vigorous tradition of opposing the kinds of arguments made by today’s celebrity atheists.