Then to Lebanon... Oh God... The flashing at night, the sirens grow and grow and grow....

""

And I groan.

Here, check this,

“In an age where passion has been done away with for the sake of science he easily foresees his fate—in an age where an author who wants readers must be careful to write in a way that he can comfortably be leafed through during the after-dinner nap, and be sure to present himself to the world like the polite gardener’s boy in the Advertiser who, hat in hand and with good references from his previous place of employment, recommends himself to a much esteemed public. He foresees his fate will be to be completely ignored; has a dreadful foreboding that the scourge of jealous criticism will more than once make itself felt; and shudders at what terrifies him even more, that some enterprising recorder […] will slice him into sections.”
Respectfully,
Johannes de Silentio.


I guess I’m here to justify my friend’s work—something that is not an easy task, I think. What follows is didactic and loud and boisterous, bogged down with lyricism and convoluted by ethereal dream logic, all of which is buoyed by the Inland Empire’s drab scenery and bullshit weather.

You may read it, put it down, try and read it again, then say, “Step off your goddam pulpit!” But, really, I can guarantee you that he didn’t mean it that way. He was thinking of you when he wrote it, at least in a round-about way. I was in communication with him when he was writing it, and he said, “I’ve been thinking of the readers. I think they can go to hell.” This is a personal book by a personal person. If you meet the author, he will be shy and nothing like the narrator, despite the fact that 25% (or more…I’m not sure anymore…) of this book is true.

The guilty parties need not worry, he means all the best.

The readers need not worry, because it all makes sense when you take and take and take from the book as he desires you to do. This is a book of passion, this is a book of emotion, this is a book of the great I AM. I think that’s the only way to describe it. A book of God’s dreams and one man’s fear.

I don’t want you to slice him into sections, like a whore, and give him to the 12 tribes of Israel for sanctification. He is already sanctified in the eyes of God. I want you to take everything with grains of beautiful sugar and salt, knowing that it does all make sense, and that the great Idea that is DEATH WALKS IN THE EAST RIVER VALLEY has a purpose beyond sounding pretentious and esoteric.

In a letter he wrote me once, he stated that, “This is a book of God, about God, and for God. I want this book to emote people into belief, into doubt, into something! Everyone is so fucking A.D.D. these days; I want to slow them down; I want to show them the beauty in the mundane, the trials in the slavery, and the greatness of not man, but of themselves. Greatness through value by God. That is my ultimate purpose, I think.”

If you’re A.D.D., take your Ritalin and settle in. If you’re an average American, turn off your T.V. and lose some goddam weight. But, no, read this book.

In truth, I really think he just wants you to believe in God…

But that’s just me. Of his real motives, I could never actually tell you about those.

Johnathan Roberts,
Hollywood and La Cienega, 1979

DEATH WALKS IN THE EAST RIVER VALLEY will never be finished. I lost the map and I am embarrassed. But you are my beloved.