Howard McEwen

The original is here:

Thought-provoking, humorous, compelling, highly recommended

The protagonist of Howard McEwan’s novel God Forsaken is on the roll of a lifetime, riding high on a wave of near psychopathic ambition to achieve one career goal after another, from Ivy League degrees, tenure, cushy teaching posts, to a series of eyebrow-raising bestsellers in his chosen field of Religious Studies, each more provocative and popular than the next, lifting him ever closer to the sun,
the one and only Dr. Desmond DeFoss, PhD, atheist public intellectual, media darling, well on his way to becoming an enduring cultural icon until fate steps in, his wave crashing against the rocky shore of outrageous sexual scandal. turning fame and fortune on their heads in its wake, for future infamy and poverty, shunning and shame, exile to a backwater Catholic university in Kentucky, to do the Devil’s bidding—literally, to ghostwrite and market Satan’s autobiography.

Yes, you read that right—spoiler alert!—Satan, one of many delightful WTF moments along this merry way, one stop after another on a subway ride through Dr. DeFoss’s personal Purgatory, increasingly curious as to what you will face on the streets above: a mother’s secret journal, a grandfather’s Pentecostal megachurch, a co-narrator, Gibby, betrayed former girlfriend and editor, devout bibliophile, hoping to shed her skin of gross materialism in search of some deeper purpose, Mary Chase, yet another co-ed temptress, Monica Kwalick, demure, unsung literary genius, Abaddon, The Angel Of Death (for Christ’s sake), Father Buckner, a violent, vengeful Catholic priest, and of course Satan himself, never far from the action at hand, offering glimpse after glimpse, as fantastic as it might sound, of the beginning and end of our world.

Just click the link before the sale expires: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09Y29SYKP

The first is here and reads:
This is a real good book and nicely written. The language, the images, the atmosphere, the touch of Woodhouse, the style… Everything is really really great. Definitely worth reading.

The second is here:
This is definitely different! Fantastic writing, genius story telling, and incredibly delicious cocktails. Thank you for sharing all three with readers and drinkers alike!! REVIEW BY DOT STAFFORD

https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R9QM4M9R4BJ1X/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B09Y29SYKP

The last few years I’ve tended to read big books. What most would call Literature. I needed a change and picked up Night Passage.

It ain’t literature. But it’s well-written and gets to the heart of the human experience while also entertaining. Why can’t “important” books be like that? Entertainment should be a prerequisite.

My novel Wrath is free, if you happen to stumble upon this block, for the next five days. Find it here.

What’s to say? It’s poorly written and ended on a disgusting, immoral scene that seemed to undermine what power the book has, the author’s own trauma and common decency.

Yuck.

I read a wide variety of novels. However, I write usually one style. I call it sharp, or straight, cutting. The are told from one character’s perspective and that character has a strong perspective. This is usually their main fault. My novel’s plots usually hinge on one small, everyday, life changing event. A crime, a personality conflict, a bad attitude.

I often fear that my style is simplistic. I would love to write a novel like Tolstoy or Tom Wolfe, big sweeping narratives but, alas, I’ve not been able to do that. Yet.

I don’t often like books like I write. I do find them a bit abrupt, or more action oriented. However, Bernhard Schlink’s The Reader is not like that at all. A teenage boy in post war Germany falls in love with an older woman, and the consequences of that love detailed throughout the entirely of this short novel.

They made a movie of it. I’ll take a watch, but I’m glad I read the book.

Here.

Go get yourself a copy here.