The day I quit taking Ritalin, I realized I was fucked. Eighteen, uneducated, and dependent on a drug I couldn't afford without my father's health insurance - I was already a loser. Could've tried harder, but what was the point? It was 1986, and my generation was the first in a century that wouldn't do as well as their parents. The music sucked, the clothes were shitty, and everything people valued seemed ridiculous. This is what happens when you elect a movie star as president. Life used to be different. I was a happy kid and felt good about myself. I was cool with Christ and enjoyed going to church until I was old enough to be called upon to read from the bible. That's when trouble began. My father sat like a despot, surrounded by darkness, one light over the table to save electricity, watching...
— Opening lines of The Gospel of Now
“...it's excellent. An original, fast-moving narrative. Terrific writing.”
Joyce Wayne — former editor, Quill & Quire, author, Last Night of the World
“A great punk rock coming-of-age story set in Eastern Washington in the 1980s – then emerging as a satellite to the nascent Seattle music scene hub. Hormonal teenage angst meets radioactive rabbit shit as wayward youth contemplate life, jobs, and the future — and escaping the drudgery of their nuclear-bomb-producing factory town.”
Wez Lundry — Thrasher Magazine
“The Gospel of Now is a book our turbulent, mutating world needs right now, and in the peculiar days to come. Occulis conjures a riveting story with timeless themes, and places it in a historic time and place in the mid to late 80’s, during the first stirrings of the movement that became known as “Grunge.” The Gospel of Now is a rare, addictive book you won’t be able to read just once. Prepare yourself for an unforgettable journey.”
Stedmond Pardy — author, The Pleasures of This Planet Aren’t EnoughOrder
