A Pagan's Nightmare: A Novel

Ray Blackston
FaithWords (2006)
ISBN 0446579599
Reviewed by Tammy Petty Conrad for Reader Views (11/06)

You have got to read this book. The concept alone is intriguing. A non-religious type is found alone in a world populated only with certified, or certifiable depending on your viewpoint, Christians. The idea that gas is now available for twelve cents a gallon for Christians is appealing, but the idea of "McScriptures" turns my stomach. But this is also a story within a story. First there’s Lanny, struggling to pay for gas at $6.66 a gallon, then there’s Ned an agent trying to sell his favorite author’s unfinished novel. Both stories are packed with surprises and laughs. I finished it in one weekend after staying up till 2:00 a.m. to find out how it ended.

You have to be willing to forget reality and imagine a world where everything is as someone else thinks it should be. Lanny finds one day that he’s the only one like him, who doesn’t seem brainwashed or out to get a reward for catching him. He travels state to state looking for his missing girlfriend and befriends DJ Ned who is also alone in the world. It becomes one adventure after another as they escape their pursuers. But all good things must come to an end and they wind up in a jail in Cuba to be reprogrammed. There was nothing funnier in the book than finding out that Fidel Castro had a CD from a now defunct boy band on his yacht.

Meanwhile Ned the agent can’t believe his luck with Larry’s latest manuscript of the above story. He knows it will make some angry and finds that even his own wife plans a neighborhood protest, which turns comical as Ned escapes over the back fence.

While Lanny is bent on finding his girl, DJ Ned fights the tide of changing music titles. “Dancing Queen” has become “Dancing’s Wrong.” He muses that “…rock and pop hits from the past three decades were the closest thing he knew to religion. Music made him feel a part of something. He’d do anything to protect music and those who wrote it.”

The writing is clever, helping us look at ourselves and our world in a different way. I was amused that Ned the agent kept handing out copies to everyone of the not yet sold manuscript. He even offered an injured flight attendant a copy as “Just a little something to ease the pain.” I think he got a rush hearing the occasional laughter and turning down the requests for more pages. Was he a frustrated writer-wannabe?  Anyway you read it, you can’t help but laugh.

Ray is the author of the “Flabbergasted” trilogy which I can’t wait to try. On his website www.rayblackston.com, the author discusses the concept for this book. It came from the idea that the Christian community has created its own subculture. He prompts the reader to imagine that if the only thing the world saw was “…our products and buzzwords instead of our authenticity and grace…the result might well be…a pagan’s nightmare.” Not only is it funny, but thought provoking too. Don’t wait till you have time for this one. Read “A Pagan’s Nightmare” now. You never know what tomorrow will bring.

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