SILENCE IN EDEN

by Jerry Allen Potter ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 28, 1978

Potter, an ex-minister, has got a chip on his shoulder as big as the Ritz. To wit (of which there's nary a drop in this sludgepot): God in your heart means rust in the head, goo in the genitals, and meanness in the spirit. The free, playing light of agnosticism and freethinking, on the other hand, will leave you healthy, randy (Ayn), and wise. So when an Oklahoma preacher tells blasphemous Frank Hyde that his family will suffer for his unbelief, and then Frank's wife dies of cancer and his son Jonathan shows sadistic tendencies, Frank heads for lusher pastures, South Texas by the Rio Grande, where a man can live without benighted superstitions. Guess, though, what son Jonathan grows up to be. You've got it: a tent-circuit evangelist, growing ever richer, ever more violent, ever nutsier. Murder, incest, self-castration: pieces of cake for Jonathan. If only, like an ex-priest in the book, he could give up the Divinity, he might learn what's really important in life. Like fellatio: ""She took him into herself that way, and gave him the greatest physical pleasure a man can know, for she loved him and he was her man and she gloried in it."" Luckily, Jonathan's children seem to regain the sanity that's gone to sleep for a generation and they grow up to be artistic, agnostic, and sensually-liberated meatballs, and all's well at the end. Cheesy and preposterous.

Pub Date: June 28, 1978

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: T. Y. Crowell

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 1978

Categories: FICTION