TIM BOUCHER, FALL 2010

Speaking of paranormal encounters, I recently received an advance review copy of reader Shane Durgee’s forthcoming debut novel, “North American Primates” self-published under his own imprint, Red Weaver Books.

The next part of this story might sound made up, but it is not. Before I ever got Shane’s email, I was relieving myself at a meal break at work this summer. You know the state you get into then, total relaxation, an emptying of the mind… and the name “Durgee” suddenly popped into my head. At first I associated it with Durga, the Hindu goddess, a topic I hadn’t even considered for a while – but the mind has a mysterious way of floating subjects up out of the subconscious at random intervals. However, shortly thereafter I checked my email and found a letter from none other than a Shane Durgee, who has been reading my site ever since the Pop Occulture days – which seems like forever ago to me. Mandala OS in action? You tell me.

A packaged arrived a few days later and I immediately began devouring Shane’s book. The plot revolves around a small-town loner near the Adirondack mountains of New York who has lead a typically mundane sort of redneck life, working boring jobs, smoking the occasional weed, contemplating suicide regularly until he has a seeming paranormal encounter on a camping trip with what he believes to be an East Coast Bigfoot.

Durgee’s Coast to Coast AM inspiration shines through in this short (210 page) romp as the main character experiences the ostracization of friends typical to anyone who believes in paranormal experiences and eventually falls in with a New Age Bigfoot cult – with surprising results. Though the writing drags a bit at times, and some of the plot twists jump maybe a little too far too fast, the book is great fun and neatly summarizes the psychological process of self-discovery which contemplation of paranormal topics may ultimately lead to. Bigfoot becomes a stand-in, almost an angel or avatar really, for God and a mirror reflecting each character’s inner compulsions.

My favorite bit of writing in the book comes from a passage around page 39 wherein the main character is contemplating the origins of human memory within the womb:

Either way, that memory must be a pleasant one of floating around in a warm universe with an unseen protector and provider monitoring your every move. Safe and dumb in the belly of God until, suddenly, the serenity of that darkness is flushed out, the memory sent spiraling into the core of your being, the seedpod of your personality, as the light of the other world chillls you and the atmosphere of earth enters your lungs. That first memory of bliss is not destroyed by the chaos of birth nor padlocked away in some psychic chest, but instead it becomes a ghost haunting our cells, never to inform our actions, but always there to remind us that when we’ve finished shitting and breeding, we can grow old and retire to the sweet reward of oblivion. Heaven is as warm and as dark as Hell.

The beauty of this book is in its interweaving of philosophical insights like that into the very mundane shitty world the main character lives in. And to paraphrase a line out of Durgee’s debut, the world should look away from its dollar breakfasts and take note of this book!

* * *

An update from author Shane Durgee on the availability of his book, as of Dec 28, 2009:

Hey I just found out that my book is finally available through Amazon and in general through Ingram (you can order it at B&N and Borders… any bookstore that gets its books from Ingram which is most).

In case you want to update the blog: http://redweaverbooks.com/contact.htm

That page has the Amazon link as well as a kindle link and my paypal address.

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