Published on 05, Feb 2023

Hope and Courage in the Darkest Moments: Who Okayed This?! The Riveting Life of Grant Davis

Philip E. Barrington, the award-winning author of the mystery/thriller Who Okayed This?! The Riveting Life of Grant Davis, remembers the despair and shock he felt when he woke up in a New York City hospital bed after being crushed by two cars.

“One moment, I was going to the grocery store, and the next, I had a Philadelphia collar around my neck, two metal wrist-splints on both wrists, and a cast from my right knee down to my toes,” Philip E. Barrington says. “My life was suddenly very different, and my future seemed impossible to predict.”

His injuries confined him to a scooter, and his recovery took months. Worse, while his body did heal, Philip E. Barrington watched as friend after friend deserted him. It was during this painful time that he found hope in the form of a best-selling author who had triumphed over her own medical struggles.

“She had a beautiful spirit and came along at exactly the right time,” Philip E. Barrington recalls. “She showed me that even in our most difficult moments, there is always reason to have hope. She also gave me the encouragement I needed to write Who Okayed This?! and helped me to believe both in myself and in the story I had to tell.”

Who Okayed This?! is a faction novel, one that is based on some true events, and follows the global journey of Grant Davis, who is attacked one night in his New York home, injected with a mysterious toxin, and left with a weakening body and no antidote. With no other option, Grant must fly from one country to the next, searching for answers and evading corrupt authorities on both sides, all while the clock is ticking.

Philip E. Barrington says that he has always loved exotic locales, so he had a wonderful time creating the settings for Grant’s adventures. As much as he likes a good whodunit and enjoyed crafting the clues to who tried to kill Grant, Philip E. Barrington also wanted to go into the emotional complexities his character faces as he struggles with his weakening body and his radically altered view of the world.

“Grant really is the guy anyone would like, so he cannot fathom that someone, perhaps close to him, tried to end his life,” Philip E. Barrington says. “Yet, there is the evidence, and the betrayal he feels as well as his uncertainty and even fear about his future cause him to do some deep thinking.”

While the book has been praised for its nonstop action and strategically revealed clues, readers have also noted its subtlety: there is an especially poignant scene in a restaurant with a waitress, as Grant sees those around him with new eyes. He simply knows something about the world that very few other people know: that time is, indeed, fleeting and even more precious with each passing second.

Philip E. Barrington says that Grant battles his own dark thoughts just like he did with his accident. “Grant is heroic, but he is still, in the end, only human, so of course he grapples with questions that have no answers,” he states. “I think, however, that in the end he emerges victorious because he recognizes that deception does not have to have the final word. If we are brave enough, we can rise above it and discover a beauty that transcends everything else around us.”

Philip E. Barrington is the author of Who Okayed This?! The Riveting Life of Grant Davis, which is the Stellar book award recipient winner of 2022. Who Okayed This?! can be purchased on Amazon or on Barnes & Noble.