#gods
ORDER HERE
A RADICAL NEW MYTH ABOUT SEX, FAITH,
AND THOSE OF US WHO WILL NEVER DIE
A young boy wanders into the woods of Harlem and witnesses the abduction of his
sister by a glowing creature. Forty years later,
now working as a New York City homicide
detective, Gus is assigned to a case in which he
unexpectedly succumbs to a vision that Helen
is still alive. To find her, he embarks on an
uorthodox investigation that leads to an ancient
civilization of gods and the people determined
to bring them back.
In this colossal new novel from the author
of The Metropolis Case, the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice collides with a new religion founded by three corporate office workers, creating something
beautiful, illogical, and overwhelming. Part sex
manifesto, part religious text, part Manhattan
noir—with a dose of deadly serious, internet inspired satire—#gods is a sprawling inquest
into the nature of faith and resistance in the
modern world. With each turn of the page,
#gods will leave you increasingly reborn.
Praise for #gods
“#gods is a mystery, an excavation of myths, an index of modern life, a gay coming-of-age
story, an office satire, a lyrical fever dream, a conspiracy. One of the most ambitious
novels in recent memory—and a wild, possibly transformative addition to the canon of
gay literature—it contains multitudes, and seethes with brilliance.” —Mark Doten,
author of The Infernal
“Matthew Gallaway’s #gods is a novel so brilliant, so funny, so full of strange and marvelous
things, I couldn’t stop writing OMG WTF I <3 THIS SO MUCH in its margins. It’s rare to
find a novel that so dazzlingly reinvigorates age-old meditations on faith and f&!*ing, art
and eros. Luminous, enterprising, and sublimely cheeky, #gods tells the story, the myth,
the dream of the human soul in all its glorious complexity.” —Suzanne Morrison,
author of Yoga Bitch
“Matthew Gallaway’s storytelling manages to be both dreamy and serious; lean and luxurious.
His words carry an incantatory power of mythic storytelling where beauty and
savagery wrap around each other like bright threads in a gorgeous tapestry.”
—Natasha Vargas-Cooper,
author of Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America
“If the ancient gods were just like us, only more so, then the same could be said for this
strange, wonderful book, in which the mundane sorrows and small triumphs of very
ordinary lives glow ever so slightly around the edges, sometimes quite literally. At once
an oddly romantic send-up of dead-end office culture and an offbeat supernatural procedural,
#gods is terrifically weird, melancholy, sexy, and charming.” —Jacob Bacharach,
author of The Bend of the World
My favorite autograph poem was (is): If all the boys lived across the sea, what a good swimmer _____ would be.
Posted by: TJW | 06/24/2008 at 04:23 PM
A triple winner: Trees, reminiscing of times gone by, before one was born, and poetry.
Thanks.
Posted by: John Anthony | 06/24/2008 at 07:21 PM
Poetry can be very reclusive and (some might say) gay. Just kidding.
But it sounds like you mother's camp poetry made for a very communal and enriching read. The internet has some of these same qualities, but the experience is often muted by margin advertisements, password protections and the limitations of non-portable, battery-powered machinery.
I'm sure when your mother opens up her autograph book her memory is smothered with the smells of pine cones, fresh lake-scented breezes and popping camp fires. When I open up my lap top all I smell is a plastic smell which (ironically) takes me back to my childhood.
When I was a boy one of my favorite things to do after my parents bought me a new action figure was to rip open the packaging and inhale the plastic smell of a brand new Luke Skywalker or Chewbaca. Each toy smelled similar but they each had a distinct aroma. As I matured, the spectrum of this toy smell grew to include the interior of new cars, the faux upholstry of furniture and the panels of new appliances. Whenever I climb into a newly cleaned rental car the first thing I do is smell the steering wheel.
I love the leathery smell of mint condition objects so much that I make an extra effort to keep my things nice so they can retain their new smell longer. There is something comforting in objects that are new, high tech or which otherwise make life easier. But your mother's camp experiences are organic in a way so as to trump any amenity. The crisp air, the scuttering of wind-swept pine needles, the moaning wind and creaking sounds of a cabin in the pitch dark--these cannot be recreated by pixels or the latest baseball-sized Apple speakers.
Nature is mighty and never-changing. Human inventions must adapt or they become relegated to the dustbin of history.
Posted by: Tim | 06/25/2008 at 06:22 AM