Book review: A Pagan's Nightmare by Ray Blackston

It's tricky writing satire for the Christian market, particularly a satire of the Christian subculture itself. But Ray Blackston does an admirable job here. It's more of an absurdist tale in the style of Dave Barry rather than the cutting satire of a Stephen Colbert or a Lewis Black.

This novel takes place after a kind of "reverse rapture". Except in this case, it's the non-believers who disappear. The only people remaining are Christians, and a handful of unfortunate pagans who got "left behind". The remaining Christians implement a hyper-legalistic society that rivals George Orwell's "1984". Gas is 12 cents a gallon for believers and $6.66 for the unbelievers. Lyrics to popular songs are changed to pithy Christian slogans, as the Beatles "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" is changed to "I Wanna Hold Your Tithe". And the entire world is enslaved to a cultish leader named Marvin the Apostle, who speaks in King James English and sends the police to round up and convert the remaining pagans. One of the unfortunate ones left behind is a contractor named Larry, who searches for his missing girlfriend while trying to dodge the nefarious so-called "Christians".

The story is told in a unique two-tiered storyline. The above story is folded within another narrative involving a real-life Larry trying to pitch the story as a novel to his agent, who tries to pitch it to publishers and Hollywood agents. Along the way, Larry meets people who want to read the story in progress, so Larry shows the completed chapters to them. One of them is his wife, a Christian who isn't particularly thrilled, and who leads protests on Larry's lawn. The dual plotline isn't actually as complicated as it might seem, and is pretty easy to follow. The humor in the book pokes fun at some of the foibles of a Christian subculture that separates and insulates itself from the world to make Christians feel comfortable, while alienating the kind of people to whom we should be showing the love of Christ. One could argue that the satire could be sharper, in showing how materialistic the modern Evangelical church is. But, that kind of book would probably hit too close to home for a Christian publisher to agree to publish. As it is, Ray Blackston has crafted a story that makes Christians think while it makes them laugh at some of the ridiculous things we do in the name of so-called "Christianity". Fans of the humor of Dave Barry or The Wittenburg Door magazine will enjoy this.