PTSD, A Lesser Known Kind: Surviving Religious Dogma

ISBN-13: 9781484073049 / Angielski / Miękka / 2013 / 306 str.

Lenny Francis

Opis

To say this book has had many face-lifts would be quite understating it. It was first published in April 2010 under the name 'PTSD of a Lesser Known Kind' (no subtitle) by Infinity Publishing outside Philadelphia. But due to shoddy workmanship on the book cover (just look at the unaligned back cover text of the original), to say nothing of the rude bitches I was dealing with then, I had to let Infinity's sorry ass go. Thinking the grass might be greener elsewhere, I uploaded two manuscripts of this book (rather than one) to Outskirts Press near Denver. When I decided not to publish with them they refused to issue a refund for even one I was appalled by such greed Afterwards I made the huge mistake of turning to iUniverse (ran by Author Solutions) out of Bloomington, Indiana, who also publish books under other names, Xlibris, AuthorHouse, and many others. I spoke nicely of iUniverse (as I had of AuthorHouse) in the beginning, doing so despite the language barrier between us as many of them cannot speak clear English. Often I couldn't understand a word they were saying. Even so, in 2011 this book was republished with iUniverse/Author Solutions with an inaccurate new subtitle they suggested of 'PTSD of a Lesser Known Kind: An Allegory.' During that process came a barrage of excessive and unfair charges. Not only that but the fools gave me the wrong page margins for the book, making it look like crap. Bottom line, they wrecked my book, emptied my bank account and left me in want and homelessness. So I just said the hell with all self-publishing dogs and the hell with this book. Then in 2013 I discovered the self-publishing book company of CreateSpace from Amazon. To my amazement I found CreateSpace was and is not based on greed or overcharges---and certainly not bogus charges. Nor are they lacking in product quality. In other words they are basically the opposite of all other self-publishing rackets I knew. For instance this company, unlike all others, does not charge a person whenever a manuscript correction needs to be made. So in 2013 my book was republished with CreateSpace with the new subtitle minus the "of": 'PTSD, A Lesser Known Kind: Surviving Religious Dogma.' Almost three years later, at present in mid-December 2015 a last revision was made using an editable PDF-to-Word program, but that allowed for only very limited corrections and changes and almost no needed capitalizations. Oh well... I tried. Anyhow, that's what I mean by many face-lifts. As to our book's contents, it consists of a very unusual and complex hybrid of fiction and nonfiction (and therefore not easy to categorize). The fictional part finds our protagonist Alan (aka Tokee), an insecure 19-year-old hobo, one day surrendering to the sweetest, eeriest delusion of all, Christianity; a fiction readymade with a supernatural father and son and earthly mommy, the whole fam'. Unable to separate the fantasy from reality, Alan believed he had found what he'd yearned for all his life, family acceptance and parental figures who loved him unconditionally. Yet there is no such thing as 'unconditional love' in the elaborate illusion that is Christianity. Quite the contrary, it is based upon very specific, very conditional demands which absolutely must be met if one is to continue finding family acceptance with "God." When Alan came to recognize that conditional love is not love at all he became overwhelmed with hurt and rebellion. And the more the lies of Christianity became exposed, the angrier he got. This went on till an irreconcilable end came. The tumultuousness of that severing also resulted in Alan's suffering a form of PTSD, a lesser known kind. This is the fictional lead of this tale (yet which in many respects is not fictional at all but quite in tune with many of my experiences as a youngster). The nonfictional side, roughly half this book, is the potent polemic against Christianity. And that speaks in no uncertain terms for itself