(cont.) "I got home pretty late one night. Let me just say up front that I was definitely drunk, but far from incoherent. And I know the difference. Trust me. Anyway, I watched some television -- somehow I ended up watching the end of Slacker, which will always be my favorite movie by that guy -- but when I turned it off, I heard voices. Like non-television voices."
"At first I thought the voices were in my head, but thankfully -- I guess, because I didn't want to think about going insane -- they weren't, which I know because I whispered and could hear myself outside of my head. I don't know if that makes a ton of sense, but it did to me at the time. So I listened a little more closely and realized these voices were coming from upstairs. Like two flights up. Which I have to say is probably one of the worst feelings in the world, right? When you think you're alone and you're not? If you're never had this happen, consider yourself lucky, because you can never really get over it. Like this one time I was on vacation and staying on this very remote beach in a country where I didn't speak the language. I knew it wasn't exactly the 'safest' place in the world -- there were bars on the windows and the owners told me to lock the house every time I went out, which I did -- but this one night, I went downstairs for like three minutes to get a drink of water and when I came back to my bedroom, most of my stuff was gone. That wasn't the scary part: I didn't care about losing anything I owned, but I was totally creeped out by the certainty that someone had been watching me. Honestly, I don't even like going on vacation anymore."
"But at this second, back in my own house, with the television now off and voices upstairs, I also felt a little angry, too, like 'who the fuck is upstairs and what do they think they're doing?' It probably helped that I was a little drunk, like I said. You know, 'liquid courage' or whatever. So I went up. Quietly, like I was going to surprise them. It was stupid. Except what was strange was that, as I got closer, the voices seemed to move farther away. It was really mind-bending. And then when I reached the landing and looked down the hall, there was -- well, I don't even know how to describe it. There was a light, I guess, is the only way to say it, but it wasn't a kind of light I associated with electricity or the sun. And as I stood there with my mouth open, the voices stopped. Obviously they -- whoever it was -- knew I was there, which wasn't something I had been planning on. Don't ask me why."
"Then I saw them -- there were three of them -- and one of them told me that there was nothing to worry about. And I was like 'okay, what do you want?' and the same one who spoke first sort of smiled -- or that's how I remember it, although I can't even say exactly what he looked like, although I'm pretty sure it was a 'he' -- and said that if I wanted to sit down for a few minutes, they would be happy to explain. What did I do? What would anyone do? What would you do? I sat down and I listened..."
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04/16/2016
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
'It’s to the credit of Matthew Gallaway’s enchanting, often funny first novel that it doesn’t require a corresponding degree of obsession from readers, but may leave them similarly transported: the book is so well written — there’s hardly a lazy sentence here — and filled with such memorable lead and supporting players that it quickly absorbs you into its worlds.'
-- The New York Times
Music: Death Culture at Sea and Saturnine
Listen or download songs and records from my indie-rock past with Saturnine here and Death Culture at Sea here.
Music Video: Remembrance of Things Past
Watch the rock opera Remembrance of Things Past written and performed by Saturnine and Frances Gibson, starring Bennett Madison and Sheila McClear.
Video: The Chaos Detective
The Chaos Detective is a series about a man searching for 'identity' as he completes assignments from a mysterious organization. Watch the first episode (five parts) on YouTube.