Prescription for a superior existence A novel

Review by Booklist Review

In his second novel, after the whimsical Loss of Leon Meed (2005), Emmons appears to be of two minds. On the one hand, the novel can be read as a satire of a Scientology-like cult; on the other, it seems to be sympathetic toward the quest for spiritual meaning. Overweight, porn-addicted workaholic Jack Smith becomes involved with Mary Shoal, the daughter of the man famous for founding the cult that gives this novel its name. PASE advocates abstaining from sex and drugs and other addictive substances while pursuing a course of self-improvement intended to culminate in union with the deity called Ur-God. Jack soon finds himself kidnapped by PASErs and indoctrinated into the faith, with his initial resistance giving way to blissful acceptance. But Mary has other plans for him, and Jack is eventually plagued by doubts about the validity of his new beliefs. Although readers will be caught up in the narrative, Emmons' ambiguous stance on the ultimate value of an all-consuming faith lessens his story's impact. Still, the unusual premise and snarky humor of this offbeat novel may win Emmons an audience.--Wilkinson, Joanne Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

The title of this book by second-time novelist Josh Emmons (The Loss of Leon Meed) is taken from the fictitious (but perhaps Scientology-inspired) cult around which much of the ideas and action spin. The PASE handbook, written by creepy messiah Montgomery Shoal, combines pseudo-science, self-help and religious fervor, while advocating abstention from sex and addictive substances. The novel's protagonist, Jack Smith, works in finance and has a penchant for painkillers, alcohol, junk food and pornography. An indiscreet after-hours visit to a strip club paid for by a company credit card leads to an ultimatum from his boss: become a "Paser" or be fired. At the same time, Jack finds himself repeatedly running into Mary Shoal, the daughter of the PASE founder. His dalliance with her results in his kidnapping and "re-education" at the hands of the PASE organization. Jack's resistance is gradually replaced with acceptance, but the blithe PASE way of life is darkened by apocalyptic predictions, forcing Jack to question his conversion. Emmons's yarn is engaging, but he can't seem to decide whether PASE is a force for good or evil in Pasers' lives, and the book fails to fully consider the ramifications of the issues it raises. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by Library Journal Review

Emmons (The Loss of Leon Meed) rakes a herd of sacred cows over the coals in this unusual novel. Jack Smith's mundane life takes an absurd turn when he's kidnapped by the fringe religious group Prescription for a Superior Existence. Known as PASE, the group forbids most pleasures, including sex, and emphasizes union with a deity called Ur-God. Though hostile at first, Jack slowly warms up to the PASE party line, which complicates matters when he is suddenly kidnapped again by what appears to be a group of countercult deprogrammers. Readers with a penchant for satire and the absurd will relish the novel's outrageous premise and knowing jibes at popular culture's sacred and secular excesses. Those who enjoy character development, however, may be disappointed by the flat, didactic speech-giving caricatures who people Jack's world. Emmons's attempt at creating a modern-day Pilgrim's Progress is a noble effort but one with limited appeal. An optional purchase for most collections, save where satire is popular.--Leigh Anne Vrabel, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

An ambitious businessman becomes the target of a Scientology-like organization in Emmons's second novel (The Loss of Leon Meed, 2005). On the eve of an assured promotion, Jack Smith gets fired, falls in love with a mysterious woman and is shot by an intruder. Hours later--or is it days?--Jack wakes to find that he has not been shot, but rather tranquilized, and he is now an involuntary patient at a Wellness Center run by the Prescription for Superior Existence, or PASE. Members of PASE include the famous, the powerful, the meek and the mild, each of whom follows PASE's command to renounce all desire for sex, alcohol, drugs, money and worldly success. PASE is recognized by the IRS as an official religion, with all attendant tax relief. But many nonbelievers--including Jack--call PASE a cult, an elaborate brainwashing hoax. Insisting that he has been kidnapped, Jack demands his release. His disruptive behavior is swiftly quashed by security guards and peer pressure. Eventually he begins to read PASE founder Montgomery Shoale's bestselling book, The Prescription, which, it is said, was revealed to the author by the one true UR (Ultimate Reality) God. After a few days of vegetarian food, exercise, PASE counseling and a blissful stint in the Synergy Device, Jack becomes PASE's latest convert. That's when his troubles really begin: The woman he fell in love with turns out to be Montgomery Shoale's defiant daughter, who wants Jack to murder her father; a radical group of deprogrammers spirit Jack from the Center to make him their star witness in a class action suit against PASE; and the UR God is calling all PASE followers "home." Will Jack prevent a worldwide mass suicide of PASE followers--or instigate it? Neither ironic nor suspenseful, this novel, narrated by Jack mostly in summary flashback, fails to introduce convincing characters, let alone compellingly relay their plight. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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In this part of the world it is light for half the year and dark the other half. Sometimes at night I look at the halos around the window blinds and breathe in salty air redolent of afternoon trips to the beach I took as a boy, my hands enclosed in my parents', my feet leaving collapsed imprints in the sand, my mind a whirl of whitewashed images. I remember how the shaded bodies lying under candy-cane umbrellas groped for one another, and how I pulled my mother and father toward the ice-cream vendors, and how I fell in love with the girls who slouched beside their crumbling sandcastles. The sun an unblinking eye on our actions. The waves forever trying to reach us. From the beginning there was so much longing, and from the beginning I could hardly bear it. I used to think that with enough scrutiny I would discover a moment to explain what happened later. Not anymore. Now the idea that a Big Bang in my youth caused the events that have sent me here -- or that with enough focus I could recall the incident, like an amnesiac witness during cross-examination recollecting how and where and by whom a murder was committed -- seems absurd. Now I know that I was always on a collision course with Prescription for a Superior Existence, that it couldn't have been otherwise. To pass time I walk around this nightbright Scandinavian village, past seafood grottos and tackle and bait shops and thatched Viking ruins with pockmarked, briny walls blanched the color of dead fish. Bjorn Bjornson, a cod oil wholesaler who joins me sometimes in order to practice his English, though it is already better than most Americans', says that the village has changed radically since he was young, noting that the citizens didn't have cellular phones, personal audio devices, satellite receivers, or sustainable fishing laws, that as always in the past many indispensable things did not exist. He imagines that growing up in California I witnessed even more incredible developments. "Your state is rushing ahead of everywhere else," he says. "In Europe the conviction is that this is terrible, and we are expected to fear and disdain it. But I have met your countrymen and seen your films and read your literature, and I want to visit to make up my own mind. Consensus is sometimes no more than shared folly." Given more time in each other's company, Bjorn and I might become friends. He is a patient, thoughtful man who considers every angle of a problem without being paralyzed by indecision. If it weren't dangerous, if information didn't travel so quickly and unpredictably, I would explain to him why I'm here and ask for his advice; instead I've told him I'm a tourist, come to take pictures of the glaciated fjords before they disappear. And so I have to decide without his or anyone else's counsel if the past month, and before that all of history, justifies my presence in a remote northern village where it has been decreed that at midnight on Sunday I will, after delivering a eulogy that is both inspirational and absolute, with a solemnity great enough for the occasion, conduct and preside over -- I am choosing my words carefully and none other will do -- the end of the world. This is as strange for me to say as it must be to hear, and I should add that I'm not yet certain that the end is coming; it could be a grand deception, or sincerely but wrongly delineated, like the edges of the world on a fifteenth-century map. There are compelling arguments for and against each possibility, and I change my mind about them so often that on Sunday, instead of having discovered the truth, I may be as confused as a pilot with spatial disorientation, in danger of mistaking a graveyard spiral for a safe landing, when up is really down, sky is really earth, and life -- suddenly and irreversibly -- is really death. Copyright (c) 2008 by Josh Emmons Excerpted from Prescription for a Superior Existence by Josh Emmons All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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