Oh, no…an atheist can write a bad book?

Thanks for the plug. And I think "very bad" is probably the understatement of the century.

Haven't you guys ever heard of "Naked Came the Stranger"? If you haven't, look it up; it was a hoax by a bunch of pissed off writers to write an intentionally shitty book to see if it would sell well, and it became hugely successful. Maybe this is a hoax too, the author's statement about his purposes of writing this book and his perception of his audience seem to indicate that this may be the case.

Book Review: The Professor and the Dominatrix

And it had such a good title going for it too....

How could a book with this gem:

"She was a connoisseur. A gobbler of whangs par excellence.""

be anything short of amazing?

Vlad @2: I don't think it's a hoax like that. For one thing, I know one of the guys who helped write Naked Came the Stranger, and while the book was overheated purple prose, it was well-crafted overheated purple prose, with i's dotted and t's crossed and the rules of grammar generally obeyed. (It was done by professionals, after all.) This thing has all the hallmarks of crank authorship.

Vlad, for a while I thought that the book may actually be a Poe, that no book would really be this bad on purpose. But unfortunately, I don't think so. The author and the person who wrote the forward (Roy Fairfield) have both written other skeptical stuff, and the book includes references to actual good atheist books.

Someone should do a Battle of the Bad Books and see if it can truely compete with Left Behind in awfulness.

I really really hope the book is a joke. With quotes like "ball the size of honeydews" and "She was a connoisseur. A gobbler of whangs par excellence." it can't be real. Please for the sake of all literature let it be a hoax.

@#4

That really is the best thing to ever be put in the printed form.

It's probably just a really bad failed joke. What I was trying to point out was that the author seemed to write the book with cynical intentions, which I think is actually exciting, because I have a boner for satire. But it just sounds to me like it was a complete fail, and he wasn't able to have coherent satirical messages throughout the book, which is unfortunate. If I were to ever write a book of this sort, I would take extreme care to weave my metaphysics into it more coherently, and not spew it all out in a one-chapter ejaculation. It could never be fully conveyed in that format. But then again, my book would be a million pages and no one would read it.

Ciaphas @ 7 - There's an Amazon Books page for this book. It sells there for $25, believe it or not. If it's a hoax, it's pretty elaborate.

@#10
I just highly doubt a guy would go out of his way to write a satire, fail miserably, and send a copy to every atheist group in the country saying it's supposed to be a learning experience. Well, I certainly learned what not to do. Of course, maybe he didn't send it to everyone. Maybe he picked me because he especially wanted me to suffer =(

That's why it's sad. He doesn't think it sucks :(

@#10 again, whoops

I wish the book was only a one chapter ejaculation of atheist rants. It was more like a horrible, chafing sexual marathon, followed by the author coming back for a quickie every half hour even though you're still sore.

Ok, maybe that was a bad simile, but at least I know what a fucking simile is. Ugghhh.

It must be a well crafted negative-PR piece built by some DI think-tank to portray atheists as homophobic, racist, sexist illiterates. Must be... :(

@ #7

From the quoted passages, this is several orders of magnitude worse than Left Behind.

Based on the review, it seems like an attempt at a Poe by an author who either misunderstood the concept, has a disturbingly mixed bag of beliefs, or just could not commit to going all of the way with it. If not, it is an unfortunate literary product from someone who is not as smart, witty, or humanistically tolerant as he apparently believes.

The description--an "overly-idealized" main character "lacking noteworthy flaws, and primarily functioning as wish-fulfillment fantasies for" its author; a story interrupted by "rambling nonsensical monologues"; grotesque sex scenes; cardboard characters--reminds me of another very bad book, also written by an atheist. I refer, of course, to Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

I can't find anything about the author (John Harrigan) online pointing to him being a professor or a skeptic. I find information about some sort of installation artist, but not this guy.

Are we sure this isn't some evangelical creating a strawman atheist author writing a book filled with strawmen and such to make atheists and skeptics look bad?

It's a vanity publisher. PublishAmerica is a print-on-demand publisher. He wrote a terrible book and then paid a lot of money to have it published. It was not something he was paid to do and should be disregarded just like all such works.

Bad atheist book? Meh. Had to happen eventually.

PZ, what was the 'angels' book your trying to scour from memory? My grandmother gave me some pretty crappy Christian books(Table in the Presence, Embraced by the Light, etc) that she thought I would "enjoy", she was right if by "enjoy" she meant put on the shelf and never acknowledge again.

I was thinking "The Math Professor and the Dominant Matrix" would be a great title for a sequel. It would also have lots of perverse, sexy stuff, like group homomorphism. One character might even be bijective!

Damn. I typed your when I meant you're. No more beers. Time for bed.

Jen, the book sounded awful, but your writing was great. I did laugh.

Grr! I hate homophones! After arguing with sexist bigots, they make me just want to tear out my Harrigan!

I was thinking "The Math Professor and the Dominant Matrix" would be a great title for a sequel. It would also have lots of perverse, sexy stuff, like group homomorphism. One character might even be bijective!

You very nearly cost me a keyboard!

After reading this review, I have mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand,it makes me embarrassed to be an atheist, or even a human being. On the other hand, it's motivation for me to actually write those stories I've been putting off. I mean, even if I write them while warped on coffee, in between bouts of SIWOTI, it can't possibly end up that bad! and he got it published!

A John Edward Harrigan did have a doctoral defense on cults , so I can't assume it's a fake.

Maybe he did a little too much research?

@#4

Wow. That was the best two sentences I've ever read.

I think I want that carved into my grave stone.

@ sbh #18 (on Atlas Shrugged)

As soon as I read Jen's review I knew someone would bring Ayn Rand up. Cardboard characters, I'll give you, easily. Bad sex scenes... yeah, though nothing so horrifically amusing as "whangs." It's been a while since I've read it, but I don't recall any particularly bigoted under- or overtones, though; there are exemplary and terribad characters of all stripes. The rhetoric itself was fairly coherent, though its removal would have greatly improved the flow of the story (and left the point intact... I skimmed the first few pages, then skipped the rest of the "manifesto" chapter because I'd already gathered every point there from the preceding narrative).

In short, while I won't do literature the disservice of calling Atlas Shrugged a good book, I wouldn't put it on nearly this level of debasement, either.

I am so sold on this book. Definitely going to buy a copy now, if just to read about Captain Marvel and whangs.

"Homosexuals would be demons working for Satin.”

out of context, that's actually kind of hillarious. i think i'll have to remember that one.

"She was a connoisseur. A gobbler of whangs par excellence."

*continues taking notes* that's just fucking genius. i might have to get this book just to re-use parts of it as ironic catch-phrases.

Are we sure this wasn't written by John Kwok?

"Gobbler of whangs" is now forever seared into my brain. OMG THE MENTAL IMAGE. IT BURNS.

Sounds truly awful...so how many of us are going to go out and read it now?
That was a great review too, except...if you're going to slag someone for typos ("demons working for Satin" is unintentional genius though...I feel a meme coming on) maybe check your own writing for:
"I had to stop myself from writting corrections..."
"other officers talk about furthering her carrier..."

You know, I've always wondered how a raunchy, steamy sex novel would look like if it were written by Dawkins, his expertise in biology and all...

For a moment I thought you were talking about Jim Starlin.

In short, while I won't do literature the disservice of calling Atlas Shrugged a good book, I wouldn't put it on nearly this level of debasement, either.

Something worse, then... is this book the professorial version of The Eye of Argon?

@#14 "...I'll be in my bunk."

Jim B at #22: "The Math Professor and the Dominant Matrix"

(laughs in hysterical appreciation)

One man against all the inequalities of the world, huh?

Also, on 'Satin' --- is it a typo? I ran across a believer who used the same; maybe it's like writing G---d instead of God. Then again it might have been a typo, as what I ran across was this:

Hell is a punishment. Satin lives their. Satin was kicked out of Heven because he wanted to be God. He thought he was better. So Hell is were Satin dwells and on earth sets earthly troubles for us to fall into and lose our faith in God and when we die we would go to him. Now It dosn’t meen that if you make one sin (because we all sin even ME!) or lose or faith once or twise and gain it back we will go to Hell. It meens if we always do that and refuse to belive in God we go to hell.

I swear I have not added nor removed a single letter.

I will not be satisfied until such tripe is put into bad Iambic Pentameter. I want to see a perfect storm of shitty writing, so that it may serve as a warning for the ages...

I wish the book was only a one chapter ejaculation of atheist rants. It was more like a horrible, chafing sexual marathon, followed by the author coming back for a quickie every half hour even though you're still sore.

...y'know, it wasn't until I read that comment that I felt put off of sex.

Something worse, then... is this book the professorial version of The Eye of Argon?

Naw. Like I mentioned here, The Eye of Argon is poorly-written (fantastically so), but at least it's got a plot.

Um...I think I'll stick with my Ghosttalker's Daydream. It's a manga about a Dominatrix that exercises ghosts on the side. It's likely Pulitzer stuff in comparison to this book being reviewed. :(

Ooh. PublishAmerica. They were the geniuses that published the 'gem' Atlanta Nights by Travis Tea.

Disregard anything published by these morons.

If we're talking bad books generally, I'm going to have to nominate everything Traci Harding ever wrote. "Ancient Future" is the first in an ongoing series and goes something like this:

Modern day Australian woman with an antiquities studies professor for a father magically goes back in time and ends up in Dark Ages Wales. She can speak the language! (Because her father could.) Everyone she meets is an earlier incarnation of the people she knew in "the future", including a creepily incestuous brother love interest angle. She knows that England is about to be invaded by Saxons (who will destroy the pristine Celtic culture, full of beliefs not entirely dissimilar to New Age woo) so she proceeds to travel around the country teaching the entire peasantry tae kwon do so they can fight off the invaders. (This last sentence is the plot of the majority of the book.)

Oh, and she's an immortal goddess. And all children have to go to school in her Dark Ages.

By the third book in the series, she's hitching rides on spaceships and talking to Merlin (who is an alien, naturally.) Atlantis turns up too.

Seriously, if you ever wanted to parody New Age hippies, you couldn't write a better bad book.

The reader reviews on Amazon are quite enjoyable (more enjoyable than the book even!)

http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Future-Dark-Age-ebook/product-reviews/B00…

She was a connoisseur. A gobbler of whangs par excellence

Does anybody else hear this in the voice of stewie frtom family guy.

Oh. wait, you have to change it to A gobbler of hwangs

Are we sure this isn't some evangelical creating a strawman atheist author writing a book filled with strawmen and such to make atheists and skeptics look bad?

Why this would be your default assumption is beyond me. Some atheists simply aren't very intelligent. There's a bright bunch on Pharyngula, but take a look at some other atheist websites and you see a very different picture. As atheism becomes more of an identity and less of an intellectual conviction (and this trend is highlighted by the growing popularity of atheist t-shirts), we can expect the average IQ of our group to diminish.

@#38 - excellent reference for us comic geeks, Scott. But are you sure it's THAT Captain Marvel, and not the other one? I think the latter would be much more cool - he shouts "Shazam!", a ligtning bolt crashes through the bedroom window and an amazing transformation takes place down below ("Oh, Captain Marvel," she coos seductively...)

Reminds me of the typo-ridden "found" book in David Sedaris' Next of Kin with phrases like "rock-hard nopples" and "tots glistening".

Jen, did this particular work of fiction include a mild mannered Eastern intellectual with a preference for Dark Blue blazers who just happened to be
!!AN!!IRISH!!TERRORIST!!!!11!! with no camera equipment?????

I think I may know who lurks behind this nome de plume....

excellently played , JK, brilliant
as always

I guess the joke is that if you're a sado-masochist you'd read the thing. If you're a brutal third-world despot you'd force your enemies to read it.

Well,

so "atheist" doesnt equal Einsteinian intellect,Shakespearan literature skills or Hegelian philosophy comprehension,I sortof knew that....

LOL

It's the Atheist version of the Left Behind books ?
now there's some bad reading for you.

But are you sure it's THAT Captain Marvel, and not the other one? I think the latter would be much more cool - he shouts "Shazam!", a ligtning bolt crashes through the bedroom window and an amazing transformation takes place down below ("Oh, Captain Marvel," she coos seductively...)

That's what I assumed. Otherwise, you'd have to explain how "my Captain Marvel was renowned across the galaxy, but eventually he got cancer and died." Which would be a terrible pickup line.

Wow.

Well, the book really does sound completely awful, but I certainly enjoyed the review!

#46 & #56: you're both onto something.
It takes far less time to read the reviews,
& they are usually more rewarding
than the books in question.

I have never heard of the term "whang" before.

Reading the review I was reminded of the sheer hideousness that characterises Hitchens' recent effort. Anecdotal, rambling, incoherent, slapstick, nonsense - designed only to offend and insult making the author (with no Scientific background) a quick buck.

From the review, it would seem this may compete well with Vogon poetry.

When "dripping with sex" is in the description, I turn away automatically. Just ew...dripping...

It must be a well crafted negative-PR piece built by some DI think-tank to portray atheists as homophobic, racist, sexist illiterates. Must be... :(
Posted by: SMortimer | April 7, 2009 12:56 AM

Problem is that cdesignproponentsists rarely seem to think that those are bad traits ...

Well I feel a bit better about having written a scathing review of a novel written by an old friend who is now a fundamentalist minister. He kept insisting...

Hwangs... heh. (Stewie)

Published by PublishAmerica - The book publisher that doesn't count.

@#37 Twin-Skies
"You know, I've always wondered how a raunchy, steamy sex novel would look like if it were written by Dawkins, his expertise in biology and all..."

I hope that it would not be like this.

#44

Um...I think I'll stick with my Ghosttalker's Daydream. It's a manga about a Dominatrix that exercises ghosts on the side.

I'd heard of services that would walk your dog for you, but this variation was new to me.

@#36

Typos noted and corrected, thank you. I admit that I'm not perfect...but I'd have a higher standard if what I was writing was being published, not just posted on a blog that no one usually reads =P

Didn't Ayn Rand write this already?

Heavy handed, incoherent plot, racist, sexist, homophobe, with two Mary Sue leads showing others "the error of their ways"... Sounds like an atheist Chick tract to me.

Does anybody else hear this in the voice of stewie frtom family guy.

Well, I do now!

Excuse me while I clean up my monitor.

#68 - that's exactly what i was thinking. The best thing about this book, apparently, is the review.

For anyone who wants to subject themselves to more, here's the freaky oral sex scene, with my comments:

http://blaghag.blogspot.com/2009/04/purple-prose.html

I see a winner for the Bulwer-Lytton writing contest.

All I had to do was click the link, which took me to Amazon. Looked at the first page and saw the name PublishAmerica. No further information is needed at that point. I did enjoy their disclaimer, about how the work is presented "as is with out editing". No, really? PA is a vanity press publishing house. Just slightly above self-publishing and just as bad. For more information check this out:

http://anotherealm.com/prededitors/pebpublisham.htm

That review makes Harrigan sound a lot like a guy here in Northern Ontario who thinks he can write named Brian Horeck:
http://www.brianhoreck.ca/
Check out some of his reviews:
http://www.amazon.com/Minnow-Trap/dp/1553830784

Thankfully Horeck doesn't associate himself with atheism.

If y'all want something "erotic" in ultra-violet prose, hie thee over to http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/011141.html ...

Reminds me of something fro Salcia Landman ("The Jewish Joke", great book, but I don't think there's an English language version). Slightly modernized, it goes like this:
A simple Jew has enough of the strict life withing the rules and laws of his community, and decides to become a skeptic. He walks to the next village, home of a well respected skeptic. The skeptic isn't home, but he might be found in the school, studying the scriptures. Surprised, our beginning skeptic walks to the school, where he finds him indeed deep in a discussion on an obscure quote. When he finally describes his quest to become a skeptic, he's asked if he knows his Torah, the Talmud and the Midrash (Jewish bible, early and later comments respectively). He answers "The Torah, sure, Talmud, a little bit, and no, no one in his village knows much Midrash." The skeptic looks at him and states:
"So, you're not a skeptic - you're just an ignoramus."

Hey, I have a copy of Atlanta Nights, which for damned sure was written to be as bad as possible, and it's... it's... well, yeah. It's horrendous. But some of it's pretty damned entertaining to read aloud.

On the other hand, it's motivation for me to actually write those stories I've been putting off. I mean, even if I write them while warped on coffee, in between bouts of SIWOTI, it can't possibly end up that bad! and he got it published!

Elwood's 2nd law: No matter what you do, there's always someone who's done a worse job and got away with it, and probably made money out of it too.

You know, I've always wondered how a raunchy, steamy sex novel would look like if it were written by Dawkins, his expertise in biology and all...

"As a sex — maniac! — I'm pretty hostile to the — rival — stork theory."

— Sexpelled

At least we don't have to worry about Hollywood making "The Professor and the Dominatrix."

Or do we?

I read the review, and sadly, it shows that racism, sexism, and homophobia are not just reserved for religious extremists.

Long story short, the atheists insult and mock the intelligence of the evangelists, the preacher tries to punch Slane, and Slane the macho boxer procedes to beat the crap out of him. The female evangelist then tries to attack the Dominatrix, but the Dominatrix rips off christian girl's dress so she's naked on TV. The atheists then laugh and joke about their victory. All of this occurs while a man dressed as Jesus gets a handjob in the audience.

I would pay to see this debate.

Um...I think I'll stick with my Ghosttalker's Daydream. It's a manga about a Dominatrix that exercises ghosts on the side.

Why? Are the ghosts flabby?

Oops, steve in mi beat me to it.

It sounds like one of Bill O'Reilly's novels.

@#4: I got that far in the review and just gave up. Mainly because I couldn't stop laughing.

Actually, I'm still laughing!

Rt

@ #65

"I'd heard of services that would walk your dog for you, but this variation was new to me."

Ooops...one of my horrible Freudian slips. Here's the hopefully correct version of #44 of what I was trying to say:

"Um...I think I'll stick with my Ghosttalker's Daydream. It's a manga about a Dominatrix that exorcise ghosts on the side. It's likely Pulitzer stuff in comparison to this book being reviewed. :("

Thanks for alerting me over that.

And yes this was another example of why some free thinking types should stay away from writing anything at all. Let alone fictional novels. <3

How many whangs must I gobble before I am labeled a connoisseur?

I want whang gobbler on my t-shirt!

@ #67: Haha....it was written by the disgruntled atheist lovechild of Ayn Rand and Dan Brown.

It just occurred to me - why don't you write a book, PZ? I know you spend a lot of time on Pharyngula, and those with desk jobs or ADHD are grateful for the endless education and entertainment you offer, but maybe you could write a sci fi mystery novel dripping with sex, violence, religion, and bigotry? Or even nonfiction, dripping with sex, violence, religion, and bigotry?

It sounds suspiciously like a literary equivalent of The Room...

Wow,kinky sex, violence. Beating up Christian evangelists , stripping a girl naked.
I thought this was the kind of book PZ and the pharyngulites would love.

AHAHAHAHAHA holy shit, I had the opportunity to skim through this the other day and it is indeed truly awful.

Or even nonfiction, dripping with sex, violence, religion, and bigotry?

Yeah, PZ should write the Bible! Wait, I'm wrong.

That's the "fiction" one.

Does anyone else find the idea of a boxing professor absurd? I mean, when you make your living with your brain, you kind of want to avoid turning it into toothpaste, as being hit on the head frequently tends to do.

Guy: "Does anyone else find the idea of a boxing professor absurd?"

Unlikely perhaps, but it is the case that Edwin Hubble was a boxer when he was young...

Wow,kinky sex, violence. Beating up Christian evangelists , stripping a girl naked.
I thought this was the kind of book PZ and the pharyngulites would love.

Only if it was well written.

There's been a few other boxing professors as well - Arne Næss had it as a hobby, and once complained that one of the downsides to turning 90 was that no journalists dared to spar with him anymore.

Then again, he was a fairly unusual man.

Doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

"Religious fundamentalists" claim moral authority and intelligence out of thin air. Some "angry atheists" claim moral authority and intelligence out of thin air.

What's the difference?

Wasn't it Oppenheimer who said "Now, I am become Death, the gobbler of whangs?"

I heard of one science fiction writer who, on a bet, tried to write a novel too bad to be published. Not only did it get published, but an adoring audience demanded sequels. I've always suspected that the culprit was the author of the "Gor" series.

Thanks, Pete [58], I didn't realize there was a "latest." Must order.... Scuse me while I skip off to Amazon... They don't think I'm me since I changed my password, so I have no book orders, which means I can't comment or something.

I hate myself for saying it, but this reminds me of The Cat Who Walked Through Walls so much.

Are we sure it wasn't ghost written by Garth Marenghi?

I'd pay to hear Ricky Gervais narrate this

Isn't it pretty obvious this book is a hoax? First clue: who feels the need to immediately describe themselves as a "secular humanist"... even before giving their name? Personally I almost never think about the fact that I don't believe in God, just as I rarely think about the fact that I don't believe in ghosts or astrology. I certainly wouldn't introduce myself to random strangers by saying "Hi, I don't believe in ghosts. Also my name is Jon." But religious folks tend to think that atheism is an all-encompassing identity, like their religious beliefs are.

Second BIG clue: a quick Google search reveals no professors named "John Harrigan." There is a doctor at a teaching hospital... But oh wait! Here's a John Harrigan, "AMS Academic Dean at International House of Prayer" in Kansas City, Mo. Hmmm...

Third clue: The extent and tenor of the book's overall badness, plus the rampant homophobia and sexism and poor-to-nonexistant understanding of sex. I've known plenty of pompous, self-important, intolerant, sexist/racist/homophobic atheists in my time, but somehow this rings especially false.

I totally agree than atheists can write very bad books, and have! But I'm surprised at you people for not spotting this as obvious baiting. If this guy had posed as a "secular humanist" commenter here I'm sure you would've spotted his trolling immediately.

EDIT: Didn't see that the guy had written other skeptical stuff before. So I could be wrong, my apologies. Aside from reading this blog I'm not much involved in the "atheism scene" and its large cast of cranks and wingnuts.

Purdue Jen’s Criticism of Harrigan’s The Professor and the Dominatrix.

Jen invites readers to visit her at http://blaghag.blogspot.com/2009/04/book-review-professor-and-dominatri…. I did and read her “scathing” (nine page) assault on my novel--linked by some of her chorus of correspondents (nine pages more) to the writings of atheist Ayn Rand and the two religionists Tim Lahaye and Bill O’Reilly--people I’d rather not be linked to. The comment from the chorus I liked best was, “The book brought vomit to my mouth.” I got the impression that she meant the review did that, not the book. Another neat one was, “The book proves that God does nor exist because He never would have allowed such a book to be written.” So much for Free Will. Some thought I might be an undercover Christian trying to make atheists look bad by identifying myself with them. Sigh. Others thanked Jen for saving them from reading the book--“taking the bullet” for them.

I haven’t had anything to do with college students for over twenty years. It was delightful to get a touch of their minds again, their enthusiasm for justice, even when misguided. Jen, God love her, intimated that if she ever had a class with me--the Giant Troll, the al-round bigot who fixedly smiled at her from the back cover--she’s drop it. Perhaps I could bring her along like I did Elsie in the book. In my defense, when I retired, my students established a scholarship in my name. Has that ever happened before? Anywhere? Don’t tell me it has: I don’t want to hear it.

So, let’s get to it. I’m going to correct her paper; just part of it, otherwise the corrections could go on for nine pages. First, let me say, Jen obviously likes to write and is rather clever. She could probably sell salt water at the ocean side and sell her opinions as facts when in an argument. Well, we all tend to do that. Distorted optics is a world-wide disorder, religiosy or atheist, doesn’t matter. Jen has a thing about the demeaning of women. I do too. It is one of my big gripes about the sky-god religions--all three of them give me a pain in the bowels.

Perhaps a point of contention, I don’t see men and women as genetically equivalent (gender feminism) but as genetically complementary, with a lot of similarities. They play complementary roles in reproduction, in raising children. Yet, this can be quite tricky. Female penguins have been known to donate an egg to a “married” male pair to hatch and raise the little one. With cloning likely in the future, what next? Have you ever tried to objectively define homosexual? Real buddy penguins have been known to break up and take off with females. Republicans become Democrats! Baptists become atheists! Behavior can change. Most homosexuals (cultural and genetic) don’t change over, yet some cultural ones do. Some play on both sides of the fence, depending on situation and opportunity. More fun, they say.

No cheers from Jen on the male characters I worked over: the killer, Officer Fudpucker, Senator Gaylord Sludge, Reverend Smiley Tuttle, porno Slick Wilson, governor’s aide Tom Collins. Jen said that I described all the women in my novel as either young and ditsy or old and disgusting. That’s an outright lie. Or, more likely, she has herself so hyped-up about the way women and homosexuals have been mistreated that she has become hyper-vigilant in looking for any sign of the old bigotries. See a sign and she becomes “The Avenger.” The sign? The villain in the story is a homosexual. Off and running, she then saw signs I was attacking women and blacks, too. I am inordinately fond of women. By choice, my primary physician is a woman. I voted for Obama. I have gone out of my way to emotionally support homosexual patients--even managing their money and medication, finding them a place to live, featuring one in a nationally- distributed education film. On women, I just don’t find in my writing the demeaning stuff that Jen does or imagines or makes up. I suspect that she was intent on damning the book from the first page on. (More on that later when I discuss The Silence of the Lambs.)

Consider, dungeon workers Kitty Kentuck and Tilley Jones are two charmers with good hearts and humor. Sexy plus but not ditsy. They get a lot of pages. Jen doesn’t even mention them. Old, neat, kindly Birdie Cabe has the whole second chapter to herself. I wrote her to contrast the homosexual psychopath of Chapter One. Jen’s description from reading me, “Frumpy old hotel maid who does nothing but talk about her deceased husband.” My description in part, “She pressed the draperies-control button on the wall by the multi-paned window: the motor hummed and the draperies opened and the morning sunshine streamed in. She looked out the large window, thinking again of Charlie, feeling lonesome enough to cry.” Clearly, she had loved Charlie. What Jen did to my beloved Elsie really got to me. I started Elsie, Beauty Queen of the Onion Festival, as the dumb blond of jokes, but with a heart, then evolved her to smarter than she seemed, finally to a real Wonder Woman who was the only one to face the killer and set him on the run. Did Jen even read the page? The female detective was seen by Jen as someone for other officers to hit one. Jen gave me another demerit for having the detective briefly become embarrassed in the porno shop interview. Simply awful that I did that. I gave the detective full credit for being a good cop in the tradition of her murdered father. The murdered bisexual clergyman’s prostitute wife I defined in the middle of the story as tragic. “When he (the lover all through her college years) left, she felt as if the bottom had dropped out of her life. She had no purpose. She knew, deep down, that she was desperate. She avoided loneliness by living unconcerned, living for amusements, but got bored and kept trying harder to amuse herself by being extreme in what she did. A thought haunted her: you can’t make a life out of games and amusements. In a way it seemed as if she had died.” It was after the loss of her lover that she became a prostitute. Jen, made her only a “skanky ho” on the basis of how she read me, keeping to her belief that I demeaned women. She criticized my dominatrix for a desire to find a good man, angry that I had not kept her fully independent. She distorted the roles of others and left out three more (that makes five) in a list she presented as complete.

Continuing with distorted optics, Jen’s misreading, as I have noted, carried over to race. I introduced the black mayor in a chapter beginning with a discussion of the development of black English in Africa and America. He was defined as smart and savvy but slipped into the black English of his parents when upset--he was upset in a good part of that chapter. I occasionally ignored political correctness to phonetically spell Irish, Mexican, and Italian accents. ‘Tis more realistic, the way people actually sound. Jen really had a blind spot for the good black policeman who always spoke standard English. He stood out on several pages, including the final chapter. How could she have missed him? She said there was only one black in the story.

A minor item to be sure, she even saw the Mickey Mouse watch on the wrong person, an example of her constant tripping and falling through the text. I don’t buy into her claim that she was really trying to do an honest review. Some part early in the story really burned her. I have an impression that she then prepared for her diatribe by consulting a book or chapter on bad writing and attributed everything she found to me, desperate blows. Please kept in mind that an experienced editor praised my book and that my articles and scripts have always been considered tops. For ad hominem attack look at this: “Has this guy (me the author) ever even had sex. If he has, I feel bad for whatever woman had to put up with it.” I can’t write, I can’t even screw, I’m in a bad way!

There are three fully-homosexual male characters in the story: the serial killer; one of his victims, Valentine Sisley; and a denizen of a gay bar. The gay bar one is interviewed by a gruff and tough and homophobe cop named Fudpucker. These four characters are within the bounds of reality. To keep to reality for the chapter on Slick Wilson’s porn store, I got permission from a porn store owner in Florida to spend a week of evenings behind the counter to study customers. It was quite interesting, good duty. You’d be surprised who buys. This store, as is Slicks, is clerked by women and sells some scanty clothes. The majority of shoppers were young to middle-age women, singularly and in groups. When they bought dildos, they were always sure to get the right batteries. What do you make of me for saying that, Jen?

The demeaning of women Jen conjured up from my story reminds me of an event that happened when I was in the fourth grade, Catholic school, boys on the left by the windows, girls on the right by the blackboards. The kid at the desk in front of me cut a ripper. Everyone looked, even the nun. The kid turned and pointed at me.

Jen trashed my book in every way; “Horrible, unintelligible writing . . . Rambling, nonsensical monologues.” (Like this?) Her detailed condemnation was enough, as I have noted, to bring vomit to the mouth of one of her fans. That’s effective writing. I have seen this sort of thing before in an attempt to trash Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code. The critic claimed that Brown had no knowledge of writing, couldn’t put together a decent sentence, diagramed paragraphs as proof. The critic didn’t mention religion at all, just Brown’s terrible writing. Several years ago, a church in my home city of Portland, Maine requested a permit to have a bonfire in the city park. They wanted to publicly burn Harry Potter books. They didn’t get the permit. In Thomas Harris’s classic suspense novel The Silence of the Lambs the serial murderer is a psychopathic homosexual known to the FBI as Buffalo Bill. As I recall the movie, there is one scene where he is sitting in front of a cosmetic-desk mirror wearing his jacket made of skins peeled from women he kidnapped. He is carefully applying lipstick, a cosmetic early used by Egyptian female prostitutes to denote the specialty of fellatio by bringing the color of the labium and vulva to the facial lips. Also, as I recall, a group of male homosexuals in reaction to the story angrily criticized Harris. And, it seems to be politically incorrect to link pedophile priests to homosexuality, which I do in the book. I doubt that Harris, any more than I by having a homosexual psychopath in my novel, was downgrading homosexuals per se. A male homosexual sadist who wanted to be a woman fit both stories. Obviously, being a homosexual doesn’t make one a killer on a pedophile.

My first page revealed the killer to be homosexual. As I said, perhaps setting Jen off from page one on? Did you notice when reading her criticisms how quickly she rejected my social explanation of a bad relationship with men being the cause of man hatred by the two “dykes-taking-over” students? Nothing aberrant about them: no need to find a cause. For a discussion of the role of experience as source of uncommon behavior, see my discussion of the Flanagan masochist case on pages 67-68.

Jen’s writing suggests to me that she is excitable, prone to race along, miss things, decode by illusion. She is so upset by fem and sex issues that she distorts what she reads in the same manner that some religious people distort by seeing demons and the devil lurking--just the way the pious killer of the story does.

Professor Slane says to his students, “Hear me loud and clear, sexuality in itself does not make a person bad or unworthy of respect.” Sexual behavior is so varied. Most kids start out as simple (to use a British slang word) wankers. Then what often follows seems unbelievable. There is a toe licker in the book, a TV producer that gets off by being spanked, and. a tri-sexual priest (tries anything sexual). Some (those of little imagination?) stay with wanking.

I conclude now. I wrote The Professor and the Dominatrix--a book on mind-corroding religion; sex, the big player in the mind; and violence, the tool of hatred--to be more active in exposing religious nonsense. The nonfiction books by greats such as Richard Dawkins are double-damn good. But what about all those regular American folk who don’t read science or seriously consider their religious beliefs? One day I read that there are eight million references to Anna Nichole Smith on the Web. I had it. Load a book with sex to attract the regular folk. Put in pious bad guys, atheist good guys. The Professor and the Dominatrix was born.

I have always been laid back about sex or anything that people agree to do that doesn’t create a disturbance or hurt others or themselves. Fairly early in life I learned that some people enjoy hurting others. Two older boys in my neighborhood would chase down a younger kid and stick his head between a forked branch of a bush--every yard had a bush or two--then yank the ends of the branches together. One time I nearly passed out from choking. To this day I cheer when the bad guy gets trounced in a TV wrestling match. Have been known to take on bullies. Take one on in the book. Returning to the fourth grade for a moment, as I said, Catholic School, boys sitting by the windows, girls by the blackboards, a park just a half-block away. Teacher’s pet Roberta and all-round boy Richard were absent from class after recess. The nun went out looking for them. Found them behind a tree in the park going at it to beat the band. She led them back to class, stood them up-front, and gave a loud (accurate for a nun) description in detail of exactly what they were doing that would lead them straight to hell. I added nuns to the bully list. To this day just the sight of a nun makes me inwardly cringe. Back in the first grade Patti never got caught. The nun must have had a urinary problem because she was forever leaving to go to the teacher’s room. Little Patti would dash to the front of the class and expose herself, several times a day. We all would wait for the performance, in time had a lookout by the door.

Forgive me, I am an old man--mid eighties--and my mind tends to turn back time. I have wondered if Patti became a stripper? Roberta a guilt-laden nun to save her soul? Or did she just decide not to get caught again?

I hope I haven’t bored you. Amazon and I will appreciate your comments on the book’s page where you see “Create Your Own Review.” No response is the worse thing.

******

A matter for student writers: I submitted a query letter to Prometheus Books last year. After waiting ten weeks, I was informed by an editor that they were not taking general fiction at that time. A friend had just been published by PublishAmerica. I got a contract for Prof. & Dom. a week after submission. I was very pleased. They seemed to be a successful company, so they claimed. (One of Jen’s chorus, apparently a professor, said he knew instantly what kind of book it would be once he saw the publisher’s name. Do you always make book-by-the-cover judgments, pal? Tom Flynn reviewed a PublishAmerica book last year that he found good enough to note in Free Inquiry.) I was given six days to correct the proofs. I was determined to meet the deadline, even thought in intensive care and on heavy doses of morphine. (How Satan stayed Satin.) PublishAmerica doesn’t have relationships with print reviewers, TV, or radio. The kind of awful stuff they have the reputation for can be seen in the very last pages of my book. Some of their authors bid for publicity at the back of all PublishAmerica books. Look at the religious titles in mine and you’ll laugh. They overprice so that when they have a sale to their authors of 40% off, they still make good money. They will put your book cover on valentines, encase a copy of your first royalty check in plastic--for a fee. My friend who introduced me to PublishAmerica had a royalty check of about five dollars bounce at the bank last month. Yes, they do make their money by selling to their own authors. Really, it is heart-breaking for a lot of people--the whole publishing industry is. A good article for you folks who write is “The Last Book Party” in Harper’s Magazine, March 2009. Only three of any ten well-edited, well-published, and actively-promoted books ever make money.

I have a cousin who has been trying for a lifetime to get published. Has read all the books on how to write, listened to radio programs where authors are interviewed, everything. I sent her twelve pages of my first draft of Prof. & Dom. for comment. She called me on the phone--as she is prone to do and talk for hours at a time--and said, “How can you write stuff like that? I’ve read six pages and I can’t read anymore.” (Shades of Jen.) It was my description of the bonobos that did it, the GG stuff. I used to share a table in the faculty dinning room with an elderly teacher from the education department. She had not read a novel written after 1945 because of the “F” word. She’d roll over in her grave if she read about the whang Captain Marvel. (My spell corrector doesn’t like the “h” in whang but my dictionary prefers it.) Damn! Jen will seize upon the elderly-teacher story and use it for another diatribe!

How did I get the marvelous comments from the experienced educator, author, editor Roy P. Fairfield? I read an article by him in Free Inquiry, saw that he lived in Maine, called him on the-telephone, and asked him to take a gander at my script. He was busy finishing a history book, but looked anyway. (Now, he has just finished yet another history book--and he‘s older than me).

The editor of The American Rationalist has been talking about reviewing Prof. & Dom. May it not bring vomit to his mouth. Ee-nuf.

John Harrigan