Nevada (Joshua S. Porter novel)

Nevada is an epistolatory novel from Josh Porter who is known mostly for his role as Josh Dies, the singer/songwriter for the band Showbread. Nevada is the follow-up to Porter's hallucinatory 2006 debut novel The Spinal Cord Perception. Like Porter's first novel, Nevada was self-published and is sold exclusively through his personal online store.^[1] Unlike The Spinal Cord Perception, Nevada was initially released in several formats including a limited edition hardcover and digital audio book.^[2]

Plot summary

A pregnant woman and her young children are attacked by two small reptiles behind a gas station. The investigating officer's child follows the "dinosaur tracks" into the desert where he goes missing near a massive hole in the Mojave Desert. The search party leads to the discovery of a Lizard slightly larger than a man named "Belial." Belial quickly makes a speech and is well received by the crowd that has amassed near the hole. Belial quickly gains popularity as a politician and is given the "Twin Towers", a large institution for the criminally insane staffed by his fellow "Ziz" who were the other former inhabitants of the hole in the desert. Belial wants to turn it into a rehabilitation facility for anyone completely free of charge (he prefers the unusual and unbalanced)
All of the narrators end up in the institution in one way or another. Jonathan Landis (whose wife, Corrine Landis, had cheated on him with Frank Parish) Belial uses his clout with the President of the US to remove and pass laws at will in order to create his new "American Church," which, after some explanation bears a great resemblance to Satanism. Belial begins his "Nephilim Project" by having the Ziz impregnate female volunteers. Belial's true nature as apathetic and even violent becomes clear as he shoots a boy because of an unrelated frustration and plays peek-a-boo with a woman who had attempted suicide but only managed to shoot the lower half of her face off.
Paul Wesley (Mild Mental Retardation) is introduced to a different outlook than Belial's "what's in it for me?" paradigm which is "how can i be good to other people" introduced to him by a homeless man who gives him a book assumed to be a Bible. Paul Wesley is sentenced to death for high treason and because of Belial's popularity, it is able to be televised. Wesley is drawn and quartered in front of a cheering crowd. The whole time he is being tortured and killed, he expresses his forgiveness for his executioners. Jonathan Landis escapes Belial's facility with the stolen notebooks Belial had been collecting from his assistants and compiles them to expose Belial's true nature, as he finishes his last journal entry it is revealed that this collection of entries is the book we've been reading all along.

References to Other Works

Two characters: Chloe and Nichole, from The Spinal Cord Perception have minor roles in the novel.

Objectionable Content

Porter reminded readers on his website prior to the book's release that, like his debut novel, Nevada contained intense and disturbing content.^[3]

The book includes:
-A fetus being torn and eaten from a pregnant mother
-A suicide that leaves a man without a head (not told in real time)
-A cat being stomped to death
-A dog being caught in a bear trap and stomped to death
-A woman shooting the lower half of her face off in a suicide attempt
-Several characters explicitly shot in the head
-Several small children have their spinal columns torn out through their mouths
-A woman being killed by her husband using a surgical drill
-A surgically altered man having his newly hermaphroditic organs kicked off
-A ferret being stomped to death
-A mentally-handicapped man being drawn and quartered

External links

• Joshua S. Porter Myspace page
• Showbread Official Site
• Porter's Official Web Store

References

1. ^ http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=86991313&blogId=518826260
2. ^ http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=86991313&blogId=518826260
3. ^ http://joshdieswebstore.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/14/