The Gospel of Anarchy

Tracks the disillusionments and epiphanies of young punks living on the outskirts of Gainesville, FL. This title explores the boundaries (if there are any) between religion and politics, faith and fanaticism, and what happens when those boundaries break down. In landlocked Gainesville, Florida, in the hot, fraught summer of 1999, a college dropout named David sleepwalks through his life—a dull haze of office work and Internet porn—until a run-in with a lost friend jolts him from his torpor. He is drawn into the vibrant but grimy world of Fishgut, a rundown house where a loose collective of anarchists, burnouts, and libertines practice utopia outside society and the law. Some even see their lifestyle as a spiritual calling. They watch for the return of a mysterious hobo who will—they hope—transform their punk oasis into the Bethlehem of a zealous, strange new creed. In his dark and mesmerizing debut novel, Justin Taylor ("a master of the modern snapshot"—Los Angeles Times) explores the borders between religion and politics, faith and fanaticism, desire and need—and what happens when those borders are breached. With wit, warmth, and remarkable insight, Taylor tracks the disillusionments and epiphanies of young punks living on the outskirts of Gainesville, FL. The home they share is a crumbling, one-story shack that contains their debauchery, affairs, theorizing, and eventual fiery transcendence. All of existence seems to pack itself within the walls of their hovel (except when it doesn't) as Taylor explores the boundaries (if there are any) between religion and politics, faith and fanaticism, and what happens when those boundaries break down. Taylor also produces a cultural portrait of late-90s America, of our pre-millennial anxiety, of our vague sense that the world would soon change forever.

Editie: Origineel, Paperback, Harper Perennial