Gospel Prism

by Gerald Weaver

Alone in his jail cell, Christian receives a midnight visitation from a beautiful stranger. She is the messiah and tasks him with solving a series of spiritual mysteries in order to save his immortal soul...

Atmospheric, dreamlike, unpredictable and wise, Gospel Prism is the dazzling debut novel from Gerald Weaver which brings into focus the relationship between literature, language, truth and religious faith.

Genres: Fiction, Unfinished

370 pages, Paperback

First published May 21, 2015

About the author

Gerald Weaver received his bachelor's degree from Yale University and Juris Doctor degree from Catholic University. He has been a Capitol Hill chief of staff, a campaign manager, a lobbyist, a single father, a teacher of English and Latin, a collector and seller of Chinese antiquities and a contributor to the political magazine, George. He lives in the suburbs of Washington, DC, and travels regularly between the United Kingdom.


About Gerald Weaver

Gerald was born in Western Pennsylvania, where he grew up with three sisters and no brothers. Gerald spoke Sicilian dialect with his grandmother who was also his nanny until he was five. He has dual citizenship, Italy and the United States. Gerald attended Yale University and Catholic University School of Law. He has worked as a lawyer, a stay-at-home-parent, a lobbyist, a teacher of Latin and English, a campaign manager, a real estate developer, a Chief of Staff on Capitol Hill, and now purchases and sells Chinese antiquities. At Yale, he studied literature under Harold Bloom and fiction writing under Gordon Lish.

Gerald’s third novel, The Girl and the Sword is a captivating historical saga that will correct how we think about the role of women in history. Pauline, a formidable young woman facing religious persecution, takes the least likely path to save herself, and inadvertently shows us how a mature love can change the world. It is also a history we should already all know, of England’s first parliament and constitution, and how they were brought about . . . in the thirteenth century.

The First First Gentleman is mostly drawn from Gerald’s thirteen years in national politics and on Capitol Hill, and from a lifetime of observing national politics from a front row seat. Gerald still has many friends on Capitol Hill and in government, including a US Senator and a Presidential appointee. It is a factually accurate political thriller that punctures the cultural orthodoxy, and a love story that ends with a woman in the White House.

Gerald began to write his first novel Gospel Prism after a visit in 2010 with Marie Colvin, who was then foreign correspondent for the Sunday Times of London. Marie and Gerald had dated at university and for a few years after, and they remained lifelong friends. She told him in 2010 to: “Write the damn book.” In February of 2012 she carried the finished original manuscript to Syria on what turned out to be her last assignment. She had it in the small knapsack, which contained only survival items and which she carried through sewers and over barbed wire.

Gerald spends his time between Italy, the United Kingdom, and Bethesda, MD where he resides with his wife, Lily. He has two children, Simon and Harriet.

Reviews

[Roger DeBlanck · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gerald Weaver’s novel Gospel Prism is not an easy book to categorize, and that is a good quality. It is an ingenious and compelling work, which is a high mark for any art. The book expertly combines its vast degree of intelligence with moments of unsettling content and also with elements of outrageous humor. In short, Gospel Prism is a clever, original, and brilliant work of fiction.

The protagonist of Weaver’s novel is Christian, a type of everyman serving time in a minimum-security facility. In his cell, he receives a visit from the messiah, who happens to be a woman of mixed race. Weaver’s thorough and vivid descriptions of Jesus as a woman left an indelible image in my mind. After these visitations, Christian often finds himself engaged in a series of adventures and excursions in pursuit of the truth to the “word.” One of the most memorable and funny of these escapades is during a “work detail” assignment where he visits the various levels of hell. Another of my favorite chapters, “My Druid Mother,” deals with the power and association of memories. Christian makes tender and emotional use of remembrances from his youth to gain perspective on his current incarceration and how this all plays into the understanding of his own truth.

The central focus of the novel involves Christian’s revelations with the lessons of faith, and he is altogether profound in both his external and internal discussions on religion and one’s search for meaning. Most remarkable is that within this philosophical framework Weaver seamlessly captures the politics and dynamics of life in prison. Gospel Prism can go from enlightening in its seriousness to frightening in its realism to hysterical in its deadpan humor. It often pokes fun while expounding upon the truth in inspirational fashion.

This is not the type of book that can be easily absorbed in a few sittings. The complex, verbose, and often extensive nature of its musings demand attention, but I was always riveted and immersed in the book’s breadth and command of subject. In paying tribute to Dante, Whitman, and Borges to name a mere few, Weaver has pulled off a most exceptional work of fiction that leaves a lasting impression.

I marked dozens of stellar passages throughout this book, making it hard to deem one as standing out among others, but the essence of this extraordinary novel might best be captured simply in a line towards the end: “Seek God in what you read and you will know the divine when you see it.” Gospel Prism succeeds in what it sets out to accomplish: it makes you feel empowered with having read something special.

[Pawan Mishra · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you are into serious literary fiction, Gospel Prism is a treat. The book takes you on a beautiful journey that's beyond the normal in terms of the story, the plot, the explanations, etc. Reading this book was like continuously walking through an amazingly beautiful landscape without having to realize the mundane surrounding outside the book. Outstandingly funny, witty, and philosophical, the book follows Christian who is serving in prison where he is visited by a mysterious female Jesus who triggers a chain of revelations. Each of these revelation takes the reader on a trip of it's own.
It's very encouraging to see that there are writers like Gerald who are not swayed by what sells easily in today's market -- who instead focus their energy on creating something extraordinary and memorable like this book thus truly contributing to the literature.

[Jack Messenger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Gerald Weaver’s debut novel is centred on the mutability of words – specifically, the Word, as revealed to a narrator named Christian by an alluring and snappily dressed female Christ-figure in his cell in Manchester Minimum Security Prison in Kentucky.

The ‘preface’ to the novel, we are told, is written by Christian’s lawyer, who informs us that the book we are about to read has already been previewed and read, translated and mistranslated, appropriated and interpreted by a host of followers in a seemingly endless cycle of hermeneutical exegesis and editorial transformation. A unique claim of the narrative of Gospel Prism is that it is a book that has anticipated, foreseen and incorporated into itself the world it has already altered. It has subsumed many other books and inspired congregations of believers and movements for social change across the globe. We must thus infer it is a divinely inspired holy book, a scripture – a text that is in the world but not of it, in any conventional sense. It is a book that resists ownership, including that of its putative author.

Christian is told he will be the recipient of twelve revelations, which turn out to be interdependent and difficult to disentangle, and often hard to understand or even formulate. Each chapter provides a new revelation in a separate literary incarnation, from Cervantes to Proust and assorted canonical points in between. Christian’s pilgrimage to enlightenment leads us through a metafictional thicket of words and experiences, inside and outside his cell, replete with intertextuality and a knowing self-reflexiveness. Revelation, we are reminded, never simply arrives, fixed and finished; instead, we must seek to understand it with more and more words, as we attempt to sidle closer to the truth: the Bible has its multitude of commentaries; the Torah has its Midrash; the Quran its Hadith and its Tafsir. Gospel Prism has its ‘preface’ and ‘afterword’. Revelation never ends.

Gospel Prism is a serious book and is seriously daunting. It’s a brave book to write as one’s first novel, as it makes few concessions to conventional expectations: is it really a novel? Or is it a collection of interlinked short stories, or a religio-philosophical treatise, or an exercise in literary criticism? It has been rapturously received by many reviewers for its subtlety and wisdom, its humour and its pathos, and its insights into prison life and literature. Try as I might, however, I have to confess that, while I admire some of the book’s scope and ambition, I have found such merits elusive and cannot summon quite the same enthusiasm. Here’s why.

Somewhat typically for a diegetic text of religious revelation, Gospel Prism is predominantly male and culturally nostalgic. As one might expect, the prison is populated by men to whom power and privilege, violence and hierarchy are central preoccupations. The inmates are familiar types, especially the wise guys and goodfellas whose argot and codes of conduct have infiltrated popular culture. These characters – less inclined than others to conceal themselves behind a curtain of split infinitives and inelegant constructions – are the most successful in the novel.

Apart from the female Christ-figure (‘an unidentifiable mix of the races’ [sic]), women are marginal figures in Gospel Prism. In at least two cases, they are the passive recipients of male strategies for seduction. Appropriately, in the Proustian chapter entitled ‘Celeste’, which is about the great love of Christian’s life, the heavenly Celeste herself is kept at one remove, focused through the lens of male subjectivity. Possibly as a consequence, one does not find subtleties of characterization or a nuanced appreciation of women’s lives here.

For instance, ‘Properly read,’ we are told later in a heteronormative aside that follows a brief sketch of Elizabeth Bennet’s virtues in Pride and Prejudice, ‘Austen should be a form of pornography for the morally and spiritually discriminating man.’ Really? And what should she be for the morally and spiritually discriminating woman? Or the rest of suffering humanity? Is this an attempt at ironic humour or is it meant to be serious criticism? (For what it’s worth, the above quotation has already been posted on a shayari website.) Either way, so much for the later ‘revelation’ that ‘Reading deeply of the great books is your best opportunity to find the divine’ (an extraordinarily blinkered and exclusionary claim).

The female-gendered Christ-figure provides no explanation for her particular incarnation, yet she is the central figure around whom revelation, literature and personal subjectivity pivot. A fascinating aspect of white, western, male psychology relates to the idea of a lost or merely glimpsed idealized first love. One finds it throughout western art and literature, and a man can often find it in himself if he looks deep enough. It recurs here, too, in a nicely evocative image that ties together past and present, revelation and memory. That last connection is crucial in Gospel Prism – we arrive at our truths via a process of memorial reconstruction. In that sense, we are the authors of our own revelation; happily for us, the divine is inside ourselves. Whether or not it is also outside ourselves – and whether or not that matters – is unclear. It is here that Gospel Prism drifts dangerously close to the Shirley MacLaine school of theology.

The chapter inspired by Dante’s Inferno in which Christian tours the circles of Hell takes some easy and sometimes curious shots: reality TV is a form of punishment, and almost the entire population of Canada is packed into the home of Charles I (mostly, it seems, to make matters worse for him). One wonders what Canadians are meant to infer from their wholesale instrumentalization and condemnation, reminiscent of the God of the Old Testament. Presumably Dante’s first readers needed little or no help to recognize who was in his densely populated Inferno, whereas the modern reader requires a vast textual apparatus of biographical notes and glosses. Our unmediated appreciation of the somewhat anodyne Hell in Gospel Prism perhaps approximates to that early experience of Dante, yet its mix of fictional and real people trapped in a variety of pop-cultural remixes often suggests an intellectual’s pet peeve far removed from the moral seriousness of The Divine Comedy.

Frustratingly (or tantalizingly, depending on your viewpoint), the revelations experienced by Christian do not actually reveal a great deal, and many of these divine disclosures are derivations of the kind of aesthetics espoused by the Romantics and their sundry successors. The inspirations afforded by Nature; the wisdom and guidance contained in ‘great literature’; the need for scepticism so as not to impose our faith and beliefs on others; the holiness within us all; grasping the world in a species of pantheistic plenitude – possibly worthy but certainly venerable, unexceptionable beliefs that were popular with (white, male, western) writers and thinkers at least as far back as the late eighteenth century. Gospel Prism may partly be ‘about’ mostly pre-twentieth-century examples of mainstream Euro-American literature, but its exemplars are presented as Platonic Forms unmoved by the enormous critical, cultural and ecological transformations that have taken place since they were written.

As these revelations accrue, one gains the impression that there is another unexamined assumption at work. It is as if they are calling us back to a particular conception of civilized values that pre-date the onset of late modernity, corralling our sensibilities into a virtuous defensive circle in order to protect ourselves from pesky multicultural dissensus and the evils of religious ideologies wedded to violence and oppression. The masked terrorist toting a kalashnikov in one hand and a holy book in the other haunts these pages – unmoved, I suspect, by the charms of syncretistic appeals to embrace his or her uncertainties.

Gospel Prism provides genuine pleasure for lovers of literary allusion (and exposes the gaps in one’s reading). Proust’s infamous cobblestone is transformed into the texture of gravel against Christian’s skin (‘skin’ – its colour and other properties – is a curiously important concern in Gospel Prism), and there are other references to The Charterhouse of Parma, Bleak House and The Brothers Karamazov, Shakespeare, Hardy, Emily Brontë, Borges, Forster, Shelley, Kafka, Eliot and Whitman (a list, we must note, that is mostly male, mostly white and mostly dead). I should admit I will never get round to reading Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, from which, of course, Gospel Prism takes major inspiration. Do these intertextual elements add up to a deconstruction of literature or otherwise illuminate literary fiction, as has been claimed? In my opinion they do not (not least because of their extremely narrow focus), but neither do they need to in order for us to enjoy them.

It is a genuine compliment to expend so much ink in criticism of a book like Gospel Prism. A novel of its ambition demands the serious engagement of its readers. It asks a great deal of us and we expect a great deal of it in return. Even while I take issue with the majority of its sweeping assumptions and exclusions, and its pervasive underdetermination, I welcome its intellectual seriousness, its thought-provoking ambiguity, and what I take to be its good intentions. As a critical outlier far removed from the consensus of reviews I have read thus far, I can only urge you to make up your own mind about Gospel Prism. You may find it entertaining and fascinating, and you may find things in it that I have completely missed.

After all, the truth is revealed only to those with eyes to see.

[Jej · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every once in a long while, I find a new book which is really remarkable; one that is beautifully written, has well-drawn characters, is both witty and moving, and makes you think. This is one of those books-- one that can make you laugh out loud, give you insight into loss, and provide an understanding of the views of people with different lives. On one level, the book is about a young man who has to adapt from a successful, upper-middle class life to a life in prison. While the place is clearly quite dangerous, the novel moves beyond the danger, to find humor and humanity.

The novel then adds a layer of literary wit; each chapter refers to a well-known piece of literature; the writing style, themes, and mood change with each chapter. The novel reads well even if you don’t know a specific reference; however, knowing that one chapter is a riff on Don Quixote, another on Dante’s Inferno, etc., brings additional depth to each story.

In addition, there are philosophical musings on the nature of religion, as well as insights into society and politics.

This book works on multiple levels – you can read it if you just want a fun summer novel, or you can also enjoy it as a jaunt through literary history, or you can use it to help frame discussion on religion, prison reform, the nature of sacrifice, or any number of other topics.

I’ve already re-read the book; it is one of those books that you can read again and again.

[Stephen Baker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gospel Prism is an extraordinary book. In one sense, I’ve never read another book like it. But in another sense, every book I read and every book I write is similar, because Gospel Prism is about every book and even goes so far as to try to be every book.

Needless to say, it’s a very ambitious novel.

Some history. I met Gerry Weaver in the ‘70s. He was a roommate of a friend of mine at Yale. I haven’t seen him since. But during those decades, he rose to a powerful staff position in Congress, was embroiled in a scandal there in the early 90s, and spent some time at a minimum security prison. This experience provides the setting and context for Gospel Prism, though the book stretches far beyond the jail walls in its themes and its scope.

A couple of years ago, Gerry got in touch with me and told me that he’d written this novel. He wondered if I might read it and provide feedback. I said yes. About a week later, an immense envelope arrived in the mail.

I was a bit overwhelmed. I was (and am) used to helping people tell stories and organize their thoughts. But Gospel Prism wasn’t journalism or a traditional story with a beginning, middle and end. It was a big, weighty hunk of literature. It was unclear and dreamlike, a book that celebrates reading. Reading, after all, is miraculous. It’s how we share ideas and experiences not only from one person to another, but also from century to the next. It may be closest thing we have to a universal brain.

Gospel Prism drives home this theme by running through the canon of Western literature. Each chapter draws from a different classic and delivers a different life lesson. It wrestles with the biggest questions, about life, love, and God. It starts with Don Quixote, runs through Shakespeare, Dante and Milton. It’s a book about books, and it’s only fitting that toward the end it takes the voice of the ultimate bibliophile, Jorge Luis Borges.

I’m not going to try to summarize the book in this review. So I’ll just break out one part of it: The unreliable narrator. Gospel Prism’s first chapter, Road Dogs, is modeled after Don Quixote, which (if we put the Bible to one side) features perhaps the most famous unreliable narration in literature. It’s supposedly written by a Moorish historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli. His text was translated into Spanish by an unnamed (and no doubt unreliable) “morisco,” and it was then edited for the reader by the one-armed Spaniard (who, like Gerry, spent time in prison), Miguel de Cervantes. (The battle in which Cervantes lost his arm, Lepanto, is referenced in the book. I have no doubt that I missed hundreds of other references, but I caught that one.)

Gerry Weaver plants plenty of seeds of doubt in his own narration. The beautiful female Jesus who guides his narrator along his journey tells him to “be suspicious of all words, even and especially the word of God, because words are limited in and of themselves and by the human minds that form and then hear them.”

Hundreds of pages later, the narrator remembers telling his mother a fib. With that lie, he recalled, ”the secrets of an entire universe had just opened up to me. She could not see that I had told her a lie and there was something about that which had been sublime and had been more than liberating.”

So the character, who for some reason winds up in prison, likes to lie, and it’s his story we look to for truth. Funny enough, we might find it there.

[Margaret Chadwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author: Gerald Weaver
Title: Gospel Prism
Genre: Young Adult, Adult, New Adult, Teen, Thriller, Drama, Fiction, Psychological Thriller, Mystery Thriller, Mystery

Synopsis: Alone in his jail cell, Christian receives a midnight visitation from a beautiful stranger. She is the messiah and tasks him with solving a series of spiritual mysteries in order to save his immortal soul ...
Atmospheric, dreamlike, unpredictable and wise, Gospel Prism is the dazzling debut novel from Gerald Weaver which brings into focus the relationship between literature, language, truth and religious faith.

Review: I would like to thank Gerald Weaver, the author, and Legit Lit Book Tours for the opportunity to receive and read such an amazing book. I really enjoyed reading this book and I am sure that I will read it again many times in the future. This is an excellent book that I am glad to have in my ever-growing book collection. I really liked the plot of this book and found that I could not stop reading and put the book down. In this book you get to know so much about the characters that you begin to feel like they are real people and that you know them on a personal level which is always a really good way to grip the attention of the reader. Connecting to the characters makes the reader want to read more and more to keep up with what is happening with the characters.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys one, a few or all of the genre's listed above; But I would also recommend it to people who have not read books of these genre's or hasn't liked these genre's in the past. I am saying this as I am certain that this book will win you over and have you rethinking what you didn't like about these genre's previously.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

[H Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a strong and unique pleasure that I get when I read a very good book that is gripping and well written and calls to mind other books. I began Gospel Prism, quickly turning each page to find out what would happen to Christian, the protagonist, on his intriguing, unique, ironic, informative and often humorous journey. It is a journey through a terribly interesting place that I would only want to visit in a book. When a book puts you where you could never go, it is a miracle. Then I realized that his journey was also spiritual and called to mind the relationship between books and faith. At a third level, I found myself thinking of Shakespeare and Walt Whitman and Jane Austen and and Tolstoy and others. Reading Gospel Prism made me realize that all books are connected and so are the human beings who read them, and that what we think of a book says more about us than it does about the book. I finished this book, then picked it up to read again. It made me laugh and think and consider all I have ever read. Reading Gospel Prism gave me an inspiration: We are the words.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't win this book on Goodreads First Reads. The author sent it to me to review. It was a very intersting to read, but not my usual "cup of tea". In fact, I'm not sure what genre this book would be inThe book consists of short stories that flow into one another each with a "revelation" that the main character was supposed to get according to the visit of a "biracial female Jesus". I enjoyed some parts of the book, but in others, all I could do was scratch my head and say, Huh?". In others, I read parts and I know that I read them, but for some reason, it didn't register and I had to read them again. In other parts, like when the main character described his wife, his description just kept going on and on and on. All I could think of was when is this going to end and get on with the book. I did laugh quite a few times and enjoyed a good portion of the book and that is why I gave it 4 stars.

[Gene · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gospel Prism is a frighteningly important book, if you believe that literature is important. But it is also deftly humorous, compellingly suspenseful, spiritually expansive, and triumphantly insightful. It is written in at least one major and several minor keys and can be enjoyed as an absorbing and informative page-turner about the confrontations and small satisfactions of prison life, or as an ironic spiritual detective story, or even as astute literary criticism masquerading as very good fiction. And from there it unfolds even further, to become an indirect investigation into the function of language, the relationship between literature and faith, and a treasure map for where wisdom may be found. Most simply put, it is perhaps the most significant book you could ever have so much fun reading.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gospel Prism is a multi-textured, multi-layered novel. The characters from Little Philly Ray Sanchez to Big Frank are intriguing, giving the reader more than a glimpse into the complexities of prison life and the redemptive powers within. The narrative is loosely but deftly held together with the visitations of the divine feminine, a mixed race goddess to the inmate-writer. The reader is left longing with the same – a godly-manly sage to illuminate her path. Gospel Prism is a book to read more than once. I loved the down to earth descriptions of prison life on the first reading and appreciated the deeper layers of meaning on the second. The book has exquisite passages, some vivid and some obscure interwoven into a novel that is gritty and real, soulful and surreal.

[Norah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gospel Prism is a fascinating novel that succeeds on several levels. It is a gripping tale of suspense set in a place that is very interesting but where no one would want to ever go. In this way, it could be a good summer beach book. But it also poses some interesting questions about reading and faith and books and the relationship between all of those. And it is also a book that is a paean to reading literature, and the tones and moods of Don Quixote and The Merchant of Venice and others haunt each chapter. Once I put this novel down, I realized that there was so much in it that when I read it again I will find many new wonders in it. And it is a good read.

[Kelsie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Oooooooh boy, this was the book that started my very long reading slump. Why? Because it was so terrible so I kept putting off reading it. "But Kelsie, just quit reading the book if you don't like it right away!" Here's the thing, I truly hate quitting books, I try to not do that at all costs but, I picked this book up again recently to try & get through chapter one when I just thought "fug it" and called it quits, reluctantly.
It was so pretentious, it felt like the author thought he had something real good, a life changing type book but what I got was some dumbass main character who really was someone I'd happily push off a cliff just to shut him up (I do not endorse cliff pushing, FYI). He came across as one of those fellas who's like 'look at me, I'm so great, in fact I'm the best, I'm above all these low-life inmates with my knowledge on women, literature and stuff that makes me sound so smart, let me share my knowledge with you, peasant.' Like no, sit down and shut up. A guy like that would have got a shiv in his side if he spoke like that in prison.
God the book was just a drag. It was just boring, maybe if I stuck with it, it might have got more interesting but with all the pretentious fluff floating around I highly doubt it. The book was basically a very long advert for the author who's showing off his pretentiousness. And what's with the lawyer part at the start of the book? Like what the hell was that? Come on Weaver, what the hell was that supposed to be?
I'm happy to toss this book to the charity shop and never think of it again, the dreaded book that started my almost year long reading slump.
x

[Rajalakshmi Prithviraj · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fact that this book has kept me pondering over it since the time that it was recommended is proof enough of the power that this book has over a reader's mind.

The story cannot be described, it has to be experienced. Simply put, there are twelve different facets of emotions depicted by the protagonist. The story is like its title; you get to see a new perspective with every reading. The perceptions differ from people to people and moods and feelings. It is not easy to categorize the book, and yet, is a must-read.

Gerald has been awesome. His writing style and narration have the power to linger on in your mind long after you have kept the book aside. The imageries are brilliant and the language, especially the words, have a different connotation every time.

The protagonist has been aptly named as Christian. However, it can be a person from any religion. This does not mean that the book is a scripture, instead, the author has weaved a beautiful story with narrations that have a deeper meaning.

To sum up, this book is not an easy read but once you do finish you can't stop yourself from thinking about it.

P.S- Thank you Jennifer and Legit Lit Book Tours for giving an awesome book to read in exchange of an honest opinion.

[Andrea Stoeckel · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am sorry to report I have been unable in the past week to get more than halfway through the first chapter of this book

I actually was, soley on the book's description, thinking that it might be like Stephen King's short "Rita Heyworth and the Shawshank Redemption". This is one of my all time favorite King stories. This is nothing like that.

I have three Masters of which two directly relate to theology. I am a published poet, and wrote sermons and news articles for many years. All this to say that Mr. Weaver's work is sanctamoneous and supercilious. It talks down to everyone, sets characters against themselves and is ethnically and religiously debasing. All in all, I chose NOT to finish the book and will return it to the NetGalley ether.

[EMH164 · Rating 1 out of 5]

A Self-Indulgent Literary Ego Trip Disguised as Revelation

Gospel Prism is not so much a novel as it is a chaotic fever dream of pretentiousness, pseudo-spiritual drivel, and literary name-dropping, wrapped in the delusion of profundity. Gerald Weaver’s debut is a stunning example of how a writer can confuse trauma with insight, and verbosity with depth.

Let’s start with the premise: a man in prison receives a midnight visitation from a “beautiful stranger” who just happens to be the messiah. Already we’re in dangerous territory — not because the idea is bold or subversive, but because it screams “MFA workshop gone wrong.” From there, the novel spirals into a series of philosophical riddles and literary references so dense and masturbatory they could suffocate even the most generous reader. If this is a meditation on the nature of truth and salvation, it’s buried under a mountain of opaque prose and hollow allusions.

Weaver has clearly read a lot of books. Unfortunately, he seems to think name-dropping literary giants (Joyce! Dante! Proust! Take your pick!) is a substitute for saying something original. The novel comes off less as a narrative and more as a stitched-together scrapbook of things the author wants you to know he knows. The result is painfully overwritten, disjointed, and exhausting.

Christian, the protagonist, isn’t a character so much as a mouthpiece — not for truth, not for redemption, but for Weaver’s own self-justification. Given the author’s personal history (a Capitol Hill corruption scandal, prison time, and a self-styled intellectual rebirth), it’s hard not to see Gospel Prism as a thinly veiled attempt at literary absolution. But rather than being raw or redemptive, it’s indulgent and self-congratulatory, with every “spiritual mystery” dripping in faux-intellectualism and very real tedium.

Even worse is the book’s tone, which hovers smugly between mysticism and superiority. It’s as if Weaver is constantly whispering, “Isn’t this brilliant?” while you, the reader, are just begging for a coherent plot or even a moment of genuine feeling. Instead, you get dense monologues, a messiah figure who feels like a freshman theology project, and a story so devoid of pacing that the whole thing collapses under its own ambition.

This is not a novel that invites you in. It locks you in a room with an overcaffeinated philosophy major and forces you to listen while they read aloud from their annotated Divine Comedy. Then they tell you it saved their life and you should feel changed too.

You won’t. You’ll feel duped.

If Gerald Weaver wants Gospel Prism to be seen as a work of redemption, he should have focused more on clarity and less on convincing readers he’s a misunderstood genius. Instead, this book is the literary equivalent of a vanity mirror — reflecting only the author’s obsession with his own supposed enlightenment.

★☆☆☆☆ — A prison of prose, and not the kind worth escaping into.

[Ella Harvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gospel Prism is a multi-textured, multi-layered novel. The characters from Little Philly Ray Sanchez to Big Frank are intriguing, giving the reader more than a glimpse into the complexities of prison life and the redemptive powers within. The narrative is loosely but deftly held together with the visitations of the divine feminine, a mixed race goddess to the inmate-writer. The reader is left longing with the same – a godly-manly sage to illuminate her path. Gospel Prism is a book to read more than once. I loved the down to earth descriptions of prison life on the first reading and appreciated the deeper layers of meaning on the second. The book has exquisite passages, some vivid and some obscure interwoven into a novel that is gritty and real, soulful and surreal.

[Rebekah Lattin-rawstrone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gospel Prism is a novel whose preface and afterword proclaim the author – in so much as the novel allows for any form of author, the book having been read and rewritten and translated even before the author experiences the events he narrates – to be an educated man named Christian, incarcerated for an undisclosed crime in a low-security prison.

Christian is visited by Christ, a beautiful woman of mixed ethnicity whose identity is made manifest to Christian by the simple fact that she is not a prostitute.

The novel that develops from this visit, not described in full until the second chapter, is a series of twelve revelations that delve into Christian’s experience in prison and beyond.

Gospel Prism is delightful because it plays with language and literature in a way that embraces, respects and gambols with religious texts, the canon, history, philosophy, politics and modern celebrity culture. If you were to gaze out of a window and imagine what kind of book might be written in the wake of modernism (which still looms large to my mind), this is the sort of book you would imagine: even at its most anarchic the tethers of words and narrative cast rye nets of safety that force remembrance of the human experience as learned through the great stories of our past. Think Ovid and Bunyan mixed with Joyce, Carter, Vonnegut and Douglas Coupland.

Funny, at times difficult and confusing, purposefully crack-pot and conflicted, Gospel Prism is a joyful romp through many reflections upon human nature, overtly religious or otherwise. It’s the kind of book you want to read again.

[Terence Hawkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most first novels have high ambitions. Few achieve them. Gospel Prism is the rare exception.

On the surface it's an account of its formerly high-flying protagonist's fall from grace to land in a minimum security prison for a brief stint. But once there he's visited by a female messiah and begins a spiritual quest in multiple episodes that references, without imitation, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.
The language is lush and often funny; the plot dense and rich.

The book's backstory can't be ignored. When the body of journalist Marie Colvin was recovered in 2012, its manuscript was found in her backpack along with two satellite phones and a few changes of clothes. She had it with her when she was killed.

This is neither a quick nor an easy read, but it makes the effort well worth while.

[Lauren Wallace · Rating 5 out of 5]

"During that time that ensured, a conversation occurred that involved several shrewd things that were said to me by Little Philly Ray Sanchez, as known as Fabrizo, which related to what had already happened in our adventure and in connection with our holy and evangelical mission and the pursuit of the fair Belina Hahner, along with other events of this, our true story" (29)

I would like to thank Gerald Weaver for the advance copy of this book!

This book was so very well written; making it very hard to put down! It's an novel that really makes you think and reflect; which was so awesome to see! It was every cool when it broke the 4th wall sometimes!

This book was a medium read; as I read it in about 2 days.

I would recommend it to anyone 18+

[Victoria Brinius · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Gospel Prism" by author Gerald Weaver is thoughtful book. It is different from my usual story but I did like it. I liked the storyline and the way that the character reacts to a beautiful stranger who meets and speaks to him in a weird place, his jail cell. It is the kind of book that will make you ask questions as you read it. I was given this book for a review and these are my opinions . I give this book a 4/5.

[Valerie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an interesting story - sort of. Unfortunately it sounds like a retread of something I have already read. The main character was so full of himself that it was difficult to like him or care about what he did or had to say.

[Eileen Reynolds · Rating 5 out of 5]

WOW

A must 'read for anyone who ever questioned their beliefs while seeking answers to why we exist and how does everything fit. The author attempts to bring the reader the answers in a most convoluted and highly wordy way. Both enlightening and entertaining.

[Naomi · Rating 3 out of 5]

GOODREADS GIVEAWAY WIN.

Review to follow.x

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was weird and confusing and really interesting.

[Lindsey]

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