Toby Johnson

The Fourth Quill (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

In the early days of AIDS, a San Francisco Health Department counselor is propelled into a mystery quest after a very ill member of an AIDS support group he runs kills himself in a way that brings media attention and political controversy which gets the counselor, Jonathan Stiers, on national television. Lynn Graves, a young woman from LaCrosse, moves to D.C. and gets a job with a consulting firm with a patriotic-sounding name that audits government research; in the xerox room one day she finds what seems to be a report on research into a totally successful cure for HIVan issue which has become critical for her personally as she's learned that her boyfriend is positive for the virus. Lynn tells Jon about her discovery when they are coincidentally introduced during a Thanksgiving vacation back to LaCrosse. When Jon goes in search of this successful clue, he seems to uncover a plot to keep the cure secret.

In a medical-thriller set in the 1980s in an alternative history, peppered with clues, coincidences and misperceptions, a strange old house with secret rooms becomes the site for an assassin's attack, an AIDS counselor who's been teaching his group Buddhist and New Age healing principles of relaxation and acceptance, becomes suspected himself of murder. In a final confrontation, Jon's spiritual principles are challenged when he's forced to answer the problem of evil in game of wits with the Director of the Liberty Bell Foundation. The hero's example of enlightened attitude, even in the face of personal loss, so affects the Director's righteousness that, it seems, the cure is released.

In the end, the heroes triumph, but it is never clear if the plot they suspected has ever really existed, but the search and the confrontation with suffering and evil have changed them all and taught them the secret of finding miracles.

Interesting as historical documentation of a time when AIDS was fraught with paranoia and miracles were the only hope and still relevant today as a parable about overcoming evil and healing oneself of fear.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Toby Johnson
• Erscheinungstermin: 2. September 2018
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9780463171257
• Artikelnr.: 53868706

Autorenporträt

Edwin Clark (Toby) Johnson, Ph.D., is a writer, editor and former psychotherapist now in semi-retirement. During the 1970s, he lived in Northern California and was on staff for many of Joseph Campbell's appearances during that time and corresponded with Campbell for over a decade. He is author of four spiritual autobiographies, two books on gay spirituality, and four novels. His 1990 novel Secret Matter received a Lambda Literary Award in the Science Fiction category and the 2000 book Gay Spirituality, a Lammy in Spirituality/Religion. His most recent books are Finding Your Own True Myth: What I Learned from Joseph Campbell and Finding God in the Sexual Underworld.

Toby Johnson and Kip Dollar, partners since 1984, ran Liberty Books, the gay and lesbian community bookstore in Austin, TX, 1988-1994, and managed two B&B operations together.

From 1996-2003, Johnson edited White Crane: A Journal of Gay Men's Spirituality. He worked as a literary editor and book designer with Lethe Press, 2005-2015. He's on the Steering Committee of Austin's LGBT Coalition on Aging.

In 2018, Toby and Kip were legally married on their 34th anniversary.

Johnson's website is tobyjohnson.com

The Photo posted is from 1980, when the first edition of The Myth of the Great Secret was published. This was on the back of the book. The photo was taken by Toby's dear friend Leslie Peterson.