The Atheist and the Parrotfish - Softcover

Barager, Richard

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1622530411 ISBN 13: 9781622530410

Verlag: Evolved Publishing, 2017

Über diesen Titel

Reseña del editor:

A transplant patient possesses eerie knowledge of his organ donor's most intimate secret. This could change everything.

WINNER: Pinnacle Book Achievement Award – Best Literary Fiction
RECOGNIZED: IndieReader's Best Reviewed Books of 2017 – Literary Fiction
SILVER MEDAL: Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) – Best Cover - Fiction
FINALIST: National Indie Excellence Awards – Contemporary Novel, General Fiction
FINALIST: Next Generation Indie Book Awards – Religious Fiction

Doctors tend to the needs of their patients, but patients give meaning to the lives of their doctors. So it is for Cullen Brodie, a twice-divorced California nephrologist, and Ennis Willoughby, a troubled cross-dresser whose life is saved by a rare heart-and-kidney transplant.

Cullen's bitter disbelief in the afterlife is tested when Ennis begins to exhibit tastes and characteristics uncannily similar to those of his female organ donor—whose first name Ennis inexplicably knows. When Ennis becomes convinced that the donor's soul has inhabited him, Cullen sides with Ennis's psychiatrist, who tells Ennis he has subconsciously confused his emerging transgender personality with the imagined characteristics of his female donor.

While his psychiatrist coaxes forth Ennis's female side, Cullen is summoned to the South Pacific by an old lover for a reckoning of their past. On the island paradise of Rarotonga, he is forced to confront the heartrending truth about a tragedy that destroyed their college romance—a tragedy Cullen blames on religious zealotry.

Filled with resentment over what he has learned, Cullen returns to Southern California determined to shatter Ennis's delusion of ensoulment. But Ennis's eerie knowledge of his donor's greatest secret forces Cullen to consider the unimaginable: Is it possible he is witness to a verifiable incident of transmigration, tangible proof of a human soul? Or is he witness instead to the miracle of being transgender? Male and female at once, the glory of one and the glory of the other, both shining—like a parrotfish, another miracle of nature, changing gender apace, beside its glorious, ever-changing hue.

MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW:
"As events spiral beyond [the characters'] control, readers are introduced to a questioning process that challenges them to consider the disparate paths of personal change and the possibilities of medical and religious realms intersecting in unusual ways. All these facets, especially the winding commentary on transgender identity and evidence of a soul, could easily have become confusing, especially when given an added shot of intrigue and the elements of a medical mystery; but under Barager's pen the logic of events and the evolution of personalities and new beliefs are impeccably drawn, and fascinating."

Evolved Publishing presents a fascinating glimpse into a world where medicine and religion/philosophy intersect, in a literary novel sure to fascinate, and quite possibly to entice you to examine your own beliefs.

More Great Literary Fiction from Evolved Publishing:

• The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky by David Litwack
• Hannah's Voice by Robb Grindstaff
• Enfold Me by Steven Greenberg

 

Biografía del autor:

AUTHOR: By day I'm a nephrologist, treating dialysis patients and kidney transplant recipients. By night I write fiction. I believe the two finest callings in life are doctor and writer, one ministering to the human condition, the other illuminating it, and each capable of transforming it. I earned BA and MD degrees at the University of Minnesota and did my postgraduate training at Emory University in Atlanta and the University of California in San Diego. I live now in Orange County, CA. I am a champion of the healing power of literature, and sometimes prescribe novels or short stories to patients to help them cope with illness. Fiction explores meaning in a way science cannot. Sometimes only fiction tells the truth.

EDITOR: As an editor, I appreciate stories with pace and humor-and no dangling participles. Genres of particular interest include nature writing, creative nonfiction, speculative fiction, and books for children & young adults. I earned my MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and I teach at New Hampshire Institute of Art.

Über diese Auflage

• Verlag: Evolved Publishing
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1622530411
• ISBN 13: 9781622530410
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 332
• Herausgeber: Pinder Eric