America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic

by Phillip Freedenberg, Jeff Walton (Illustrator)

America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic is a metafictional, maximalist, experimental book about writing a book while waiting for a book to arrive in the mail, and the mysterious transmissions from expatriate American author Rick Harsch, whose novel The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas altered the unusual lives of author Phillip Freedenberg and illustrator Jeff Walton, who both reside in Buffalo, New York.

The novel’s quixotically plotted architecture of fictional and non-fictional action contains an alternative American history and, ultimately, a new possible world, nested within a complex labyrinthian Mandelbrot fractal structure that encases a diagnostic theoretical index of ideas. Phillip and Jeff navigate an unusual world, inhabited by the character-surrogates Rick Harsch and philosopher David Miller, on an eccentric, chaotic, alchemical, experimental odyssey that occurs inside and outside the book itself. And all this under the existential umbrella of a decaying, dystopian America, where everything — including the word itself — is at risk.

America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic explores philosophy, neuroscience, totalitarianism, alchemy, technology, psychology, cosmology, psychedelia, politics, physics, mystery, adventure, absurdism, poetry, and literature within an obscured hero's quest.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, Literary Fiction, The United States Of America, Weird Fiction, Contemporary, 21st Century

578 pages, Paperback

Published May 17, 2021

Reviews

[Nick Voro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: This review is not a true review. It is more of a summary composed of the author’s own words. Call it an enthusiastic proclamation. I leave reviewing to the real reviewers. I am simply sharing my enthusiasm for the work with this summary / prose collage.

*

What are we trying to achieve in a distant and fundamentally unknowable world? We may know the reason for being drawn to a particular book. At other times, the same reasoning escapes us. What happens when you stumble upon the right book, a book inside of which you are found alive, a captured perfect moment, a perfect alignment in which you become yourself, we become ourselves, and for any of the moments spent inside the book, extended or brief, we can assuredly state: We have finally returned home.

This book is home. This book has the answers. Imagine a book which helps you navigate through the complexity of our lives. How about a book which assists with navigation of the seemingly insurmountable vastness of our world? Helps you claw your way back toward whatever we actually are in the grand, unknown, impossible scheme of things.

This book can show the way. A way back to ourselves. A way back to recapture our humanity on which we have turned our backs. A guiding hand to help us get away from the precipice into the abyss.

We have forgotten. This book is a reminder. Before history becomes forever unchangeable. This book is not just another book. The book is a possible world.

And in this possible world, you have to explore tens of thousands of words in the underground word tunnels, witness Phillip Freedenberg write tens of thousands of words in his America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots, and only then will you stand within the fourth dimension tesseract, physically quivering in awe at the fifty-story glass fractal cactus rise before you as the monolith of the Unified Field, and it will unify the ascended minds of the reader as one, creating a new America.

You will become one inseparably vast reading mind. Become total consciousness. Setting free the imprisoned minds of humanity. Inhale, hold, exhale… Welcome dear reader. This is a possible world. Where you can enter the Unified Field. Become the ascended observer. Unlocking hidden truths, higher purpose and meaning.

Find the path to your true self. Bring down the walled fortification. A new crusade has begun. An absolute manifest expression pattern of the artistry of the human mind. An indescribably, incomparable quest. A psychedelic, absurdist, hyperbolic, complex, unconventional, experimental, reinventing, perplexing, inventive, delirious, esoteric, exotic, satirical self-referential metaphysical adventure. A creative renaissance. An impossible to stop stream of words. The definition of the creativity of the human mind.

Join the rebellion, the fight against mental and social control and enslavement, by which local political and religious institutions so vigorously monopolize. Cultivate control of the human mind, so that it does not wander unchaperoned into the far creative reaches of the deep unknown.

Meet Slimey Bear Foot, a textbook hamadryad wood nymph and a prophetic pamphleteer, a blackjack dealer named Olive Elizabeth Rendering and her fantastical storytelling acumen, meet Horus Divination Walton the 3rd, who relies on an eccentric methodological weather forecasting codex aka a correlation between the movement and position of his mustache, and that day’s weather pattern. Or read the Hive Mind Gazette, which keeps America unified and informed while President Ralph wages war against the written word.

A war on words. A war on humanity. When the world stops reading, and we finally murder the word, it will be then and only then that we may signal toward the decay of our brilliance.

All part of the current psycho-temporal mind space of America. A vapid, driveling soup kit of burrowed bog, annexed from a waste-wasteland, an outpost orbiting pure socio-cultural insanity. Roots of American idealism, dominant values strongly bound to genocide, slavery, war, power, control domination, oppression, subjugation, and an imperial hegemonic hunger for Empire that would lay a new foundation of power in America, that would be cultivated for by the American pyramidal power structures for another 500 years. All culminating in the selection of President Ralph, resulting in his totalitarian reign, and a devilish development of an all consciousness replacement program, a path to complete pure obedience. A forfeiture of each individualistic consciousness for government approved uninterrupted dopamine-releasing pleasure imagery.

Leaving it in the hands of FREEDENBERG/WALTON/HARSCH, the elevated threefold divine harmony, the ego, the self, and the soul. The trio that must un-map the world. Break the system with an explosion of information designed within the expanding fractal structures of the text. Bring forth a revolution. A new beginning. An exodus to a newly imagined, much less morose America. A new science. A pataphysical experiment in new ideas. So begins a new solution. So begins the Book.

I think it’s impossible not to use terms like prophetic and brilliantly observed when discussing this book. A book that looks at the price we have had to pay for our accelerated development and serves as a field guide to preventative measures. A way to avoid soon-to-be-mass extinction. Have we not been warned before of this? A hijacked consciousness. A plan for total control of the human mind. But have they ever shown us the way? A way to undo, strip away, return to the very beginning or before the beginning as we know it, and begin anew.

Phillip Freedenberg has created profound original art. Art that requires a daringly profound creative audience. A book which will inspire any bright-minded reader. A voyeuristic look at US, what we have become. Behind the satire lies true horror. But this book is also a tool. Let us chisel with our Stone Age implements and start over. Let us enter the word tunnels. This is absurdist theater where the audience finds themselves isolated participants in a sensory deprivation float tank experiencing a heightened hallucinatory psychedelic state. This is LSD. This is a new original art. This is a book to end all books so that new books could be created. This is Higgs boson.

POSTSCRIPT:

It was prophesied that one day Phillip Freedenberg with the assistance of visual virtuoso Jeff Walton and messages from publisher Rick Harsch would reconnect a dying species in the final stages of its dying world, to reconnect with the books, and reconnect with the words to manifest what they called the dawn of the Cult of the New Cosmos.

“I know the world will one day end, and these words will be its fossils, but you will set the Book down now, and try to go to sleep, but the sound of these words will never leave your head, as I dance around in the eternal barn fires of your imagination. Now I will say good night.”

Can you hear the words, dear reader? Can you hear Phillip Freedenberg’s voice? The fires are lit. Your imagination is set ablaze. A virtually unstoppable firestorm. You have been chosen. Initiated. Now go forth and spread the word. Remember, dear reader, this novel is capable of a perceptual shift which exerts a powerful influence upon the imaginative thinking capacity of the people that have read it. A metamorphosis of the mind. Submit to the word fever. Travel through it. Read this book to experience the newly expanded wakefulness of yourself looking back at you. A disconnected, displaced version of yourself living in an illusory simulation of a disintegrated America. Allow this book to penetrate the mind. Remain hopeful of finding a world of unnamed things. To find a world of new objects and structures untethered from traditional symbolic orientations. Let’s take one infinite deep breath together. Close our eyes and allow our minds to manifest dreams. Build the many new, possible worlds together. Let’s keep on reading our way through to the other side. This reviewer certainly hopes to meet you there.

FINAL THOUGHTS

A never been done before, unique postmodern literary experiment. An unraveling, existential mystery. Housing both maximalist and metafiction elements under one roof. Disorienting and challenging. A clever nod to Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation, intertwined with bizarre worlds created by David Lynch and Alejandro Jodorowsky. A bottomless rabbit hole of original profound ideas and social commentary. Discovery and innovation among grand decay and great chaos. Forever nonconformist. Tackling power politics, scientific theory, historical development through time, philosophy, the arts.

A book which takes you inside the creative process itself, allowing you to stand witness before the brilliant turbulence of creation. The germ of an idea, the writing that follows, a Kurt Vonnegut-ian teleportation of being inside the actual book. Breathe freely, breathe deeply under the architecture of this text. Feel the electricity of the words, growing slowly to become the currency of a thousand deeply seeking interconnected minds.

The coming revolution will be a revolution of creativity. The revolution has begun.

[STATIC INTERRUPTION]

Transmission from the Great Beyond

Rick Harsch requests a short, concise review.

Kaleidoscopic, sprawling information center, multi-levelled/multi-layered, long-gestating, encyclopedic, reality disintegrating, satirical comedy or nightmarish reality-you pick, examining a dystopian future where a total consciousness replacement initiative is a reality, writers are terrorists, and the written word is in danger of elimination. It’s a non-linear story, intrinsically connected to Rick Harsch’s The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas. Prescient and relatable. There are heroes, there are villains, and then there’s America. The first ever reading sensory experience. A book which is unlike any other book as a whole and unlikely to be replicated unless done by Phillip Freedenberg himself. A life-changing novel with profound impact. Incredible in scope. All connecting. An experience of human togetherness. Fully capable of changing the course of a reader’s life. (Complete originality without a point of reference). Thought provoking, conversation starting, limit transcending experience. A harmonized message of unification and resistance. If you have a dream. Start it NOW. This was Phillip Freedenberg’s dream.

[Rick Harsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Here is what Steven Moore just wrote about this book (june 5, 2021):

"Written and illustrated during the final months of the Trump presidency, America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic transmogrifies that bizarre period into a dystopian fantasy about what might have happened had Trump and his totalitarian troglodytes triumphed. Metafictionally calling itself an “unreal, esoteric, exotic, metaphysical adventure,” the novel features three talented rebels—the author, the illustrator, and the publisher—who defend independent, nonconformist thinking against an Orwellian war against the written word by way of superfetatious prose, sci-fi/occult tropes, Pynchonesque/Wallacian erudition, psychedelic excursions, and postmodern pyrotechnics. Going to absurdist lengths to dramatize the liberating effects of creative thought, the novel also demonstrates the power of the right book arriving at the right time to change one’s life. Recommended if you like Burroughs’s Sixties novels, Brossard’s freak-show epics, Robert Anton Wilson’s trilogies, and/or Mark Leyner’s fiction."



The sixth star can't be seen but is represented by its inclusion of the category of books, which are few, that immediately upon finishing them the reader knows a second read is imminent and that multiple reads are likely. The seventh star is Steven Moore's reaction.

This book is a subversive metafictional handbook or guide to a future in which words regain their power, poets and philosophers their voices, creativity replaces profit, and hope rides a winged donkey. Combining satire, premature futuristic deviltry, direct thievery from life in freeze-frames of deformity, America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots is perhaps the most anticipated small press novel of the year.
Freedenberg uses the inspired drawings of his visuals cohort, Jeff Walton, advanced engineering scientific writing, poetry, slapstick, and a great many more tricks of the writing trade to produce his novel about a man waiting for a novel while writing a novel about a man who wrote about waiting for a man writing or waiting for a novel or something that like that that is much more clear in the actual reading, under the duress of dodging an insectivore censor-arm of government in the last days of the word, a future Freedenberg offers the reader the opportunity to reject.
Perhaps most important is that Freedenberg seems to recognize that his vision is a reflection of a movement, at the very least a vibrating potential movement--and he may be right, as small presses have published several ‘metafictional’ novels of political engagement in the past year, not only several by corona/samizdat (Chandler Brossard, Rick Harsch [whose Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas is the spark for Freedenberg’s effort]), but for instance Sesshu Foster’s History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines. In fact, there is a grandiosity to Freedenberg’s vision that is a generous call for a collaborative community to grow from the very political fact of cultural decline. Similar to Foster's ELADATL, the direct view of the horrific is ameliorated to a sliding scale degree by the hope for a collaborative future of an enlightened humanity.
[also see my youtube reviews of the novel and of its visuals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwvzJ... Jeff Walton's drawings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4zEG...]

[Christopher Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The feeling of being lost inside of a book, unable to get my bearings—for me, there are fewer greater pleasures. I love it when my feeble attempts at comprehension are undermined—playfully or otherwise, it doesn’t much matter to me. Simply, I love being surprised, toyed with (hence, I’ve long been a sucker for well done metafiction), and the surprises need not even be conventionally pleasant.

Is that relatable? Are you like me in those ways? If so, then you NEED to read America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic. It ticks all of those boxes and more and more and many many more—indeed, it somehow keeps topping itself, outdoing itself, daring itself to go farther and farther out, accepting the challenge and succeeding. Its boundless creativity and the resultant sea of surprises will boggle your mind in the best way, and its energy is infectious. Your head will swim during the bouts of Word Fever; you’ll feel disoriented and lost in the Word Tunnels and the Rick Harsch Brain and the supremely mysterious network of (((the)))’s… your readerly equilibrium doesn’t stand a chance. You’ll love it.

I’ll cite as an example one of my very favorite scenes: Phillip and Jeff are in their office at their workplace. Just then, the wall is gone and they’re looking out onto a vast movie theater audience, all eyes on them. The ceiling is gone too, and the eyes of readers are looking down on them. The room starts turning into words on paper, themselves included, and they run to the exit but the exit isn’t a door anymore, but rather a door-shaped-and-sized sheet of paper that reads DOOR. The rest you’ll have to read and see for yourself, but rest assured that what follows is one of the most astonishing things I’ve read in quite a while. I was quite literally smiling so hard while reading it that my cheekbones began to ache. I couldn’t believe what I was reading. I still can’t. I’ve gone back to this section several times since finishing the book, just to look at it more closely, admire its construction, its execution, and on every occasion the result has been the same: incredulity, amazement, cheekbones inevitably aching from a sustained wide smile. This is not an exaggeration. Such is the power of this book’s effect. Certainly I’m not alone in this.

The visuals by Jeff Walton are gorgeous and amazing things to behold, and they are seamlessly woven into the novel; essential to its structure and functioning in a way not often seen, if ever, within a non-graphic novel. They heighten and sustain the wonderful feelings of sensory overload and total absorption while reading. (Seriously, combine the reading of this book with a fitting soundtrack and some incense or a scented candle and the outside world ceases to exist until you look up from the page). I sincerely hope that some of the illustrations are printed as posters at some point, because I’d love to have a few of them hanging on my walls (namely the peacock-feather-fingered gentleman on page 76… what a lovely thing that illustration is).

To sum up, America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic is many things in one: a massive(ly) metafictional dystopian head-spinner adventure tale; an amorous missive to literature itself, to the power of the (well-)written word; a grand testament to what can happen when an author barrels full-steam ahead into the great creative unknown, relentlessly pursuing their vision with no regard for conventionality, no brakes or safety nets, plumbing its depths and mining it for every last speck of gold, completely unwilling to compromise… it’s a supremely inspiring, invigorating, marvelous read. A true achievement.

(As if it even needs saying at this point—)

Highly recommended.

[Zachary Tanner · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if Laurence Sterne wrote an episode of Adventure Time? This book is but a vibrational mirage of some higher dimensional happenstance which just happens to have revealed itself to the human consciousness as a novel, but just as readily have I traveled to the glass fractal in the schema of a casual mushroom-chocolate-induced holotropic romp in my backyard, various near-death OBEs, or perhaps a few careful months of lucid dreaming with Cumulative Purpose, if only I could master it.

I am a person in a green shirt and green glasses in green mountains with a copy of a green book in my hand which is a book about writing a book while waiting for a book to come in the mail (as well as a book about America written in America but published in Slovenia) that was written in the intervening time between now (in the green mountains) and then, a year ago, June 2020, what a month: finding Rick Harsch through Chris Via and immediately beginning to receive electronic voice transmissions from the eccentric ex-pat author who, after thirty years of writing the lonely old fashion way, was wildly recruiting collaborators for The Assassination of Olof Palme.

Meanwhile wholesome buddy duo Phillip Freedenberg and Jeff Walton are up in Buffalo eating Chinese food and watching FLCL, and something snaps when that Rickenbacker hits the kid’s forehead and the giant robot grows out and changes his life forever. It could be a giant robot if this were an anime, or if it was simply a Tuesday afternoon, it might be a beautiful crystal cordyceps fungus anchoring a maniacal wasp forever to a branch, bizarre sprouts of deathly beauty reminding us of the rebirth of galaxies.

Thus, we begin

HERE
HERE

^

HERE

HERE HERE

In

NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM
NEOLOGISM A Pool of Cosmic NEOLOGISM
NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM
NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM
NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM NEOLOGISM

at Zarathustra’s (Harsch for Zoroaster) mountain commune and launch a SpaceX rocket toward a nebula that looks just like Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche—how the Virgin might sometimes appear on a piece of French toast—and once it’s reached escape velocity, that baby’s just gonna go, and keep going, and on, and on, and on, and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on AND ON itself now sounding something like the hum of the total universe and somewhere beyond the cosmic background radiation, the distant bounds of the universe have snapped back toward us, and perhaps this book, our crumbling Western empire, the self-destructive paradoxes of human globalism are all simply a gamma echo of our self-manifested end.

[Kevin Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is exactly what we need in the world. A mind-expanding, mind-freeing kaleidoscope of a novel. Something that you start reading and can’t stop. You ask yourself why aren’t there more hours in the day so I can continue to just read this book. It’s imaginative and absurd. It’s transformative and enlightened (pages 95 & 191 haha). A truly unique reading experience. I just loved it. Is that simple enough for you?

On a different level, it’s amazing to “know” all these people that are just killing it in the literary world. And a big shout-out to Rick Harsch and what he is accomplishing with Corona/Samizdat. Bringing the world great literature is what we all need. Much love RH.

And hopefully this sentence won’t always be so relevant…
“I set the paper down, more terrified today for the future of America than I was yesterday.”

[Nathan "N.R." Gaddis]

Okay so but this thing. This thing landed on my doorstep quite unanticipated. Fortunately my doorstep is composed of concrete. So dropping a brick on it wasn't really a problem.

Thank you to Mr Phillip Freedenberg, author of The Cactus Boots, for thinking of me and sending me this entertainment. Being as how its arrival was well=timed, serendipitous perhaps, in personal terms (if not in plot=terms) which will not be explicated here in this very public forum.

I just learned via twitter that goodreads is amateur hour. Yes. I know that. It's the very feature (not a bug!) of this site that allows me to tinker around with words, no care about no editor or no=not what.

So I introduced my nibling to my library and, lol, after picking out that beautiful hd of The Hobbit, they went straight to the madhouse. Yes, I mean they picked up a volume of Mark Leyner. It's got 'orgy' in the title, so of course. But still. Out of everything, an introducee to my library picks up the maddest most bonkers shit I've got.

Until the Cactus Boots. Yes. This is one of those Rabelaisian things that you cleaned up little book consumers will want to avoid. Because there weren't no editor telling no one no how that there needs to be some more relatable kind of type characters or earth shattering themes or that it should even stick together and no one (apparently) told ole Phillip that no one would believe that whole set up about extreme competitive ironing.

What is the Cactus Boots? Well, it's one of those metaphictional things mourning the loss of reading. I know I know, a little dramatic. But still. I think it's like the literary=lovers' version of that Frank Zappa ditti ::

Information is not knowledge.
Knowledge is not wisdom.
Wisdom is not truth.
Truth is not beauty.
Beauty is not love.
Love is not music.
Music is THE BEST.

But so go now and listen to Joe's Garage, a kind of musical version of this book here underReview if you must know ::
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...


[disclaimer :: I seem to have discovered myself a fully paid=up dues=paying sort of member of both the Cactus Boots and corona/samizdat. So everything I say is false. ]

[Justin Zigenis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A study found that eating cacti can reduce body fat, blood pressure, and lower cholesterol. I further posit that consuming Cactus Boots will positively alter the course of your life. It’s creativity fertilizer infused with super-growth absurdism. A mind bending word fever. The reading experience of lifetime.
The only complaint I have read about Cactus Boots is that there isn’t much character development. Not only do I disagree, but opine that the story itself is too rich to accommodate the added content. It’s a book of ideas that doesn’t depend on conventional character development.
I can say, without hyperbole, that I have never read a satire that critiques while simultaneously inspires. Well worth the two weeks it took to read. All hail Calcaltalume!

[Klaus Hauser · Rating 5 out of 5]

During an interview, author Rick Harsch (The Driftless Trilogy, Skulls of Istria, The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas), once expressed his disgust with great US writers' fascination with the assassination of JFK: »In Portugal you have Antonio Lobo Antunes putting out one masterpiece after another about fascism and colonialism, matters of global historical import, while there they write trifles about an assassination that changed nothing. I threw DeLillo's Libra into a ravine when I finished it, and along with my colleague, friend and fellow anti-fascist author Sesshu Foster pelted Mailer's nonsense with a potato gun.«
As of a moment ago, having finished America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: a Diagnostic by Phillip Freedenberg, I am pleased to announce that fiction in the United States appears to be catching up with that of the rest of the globe. Published by Harsch's fledgling press corona\samizdat (begun in April of 2020), Freedenberg's book comes on the heels of Sesshu Foster's History of the East Los Angeles Dirigle Air Transport lines, from City Lights, as well as two monsters of anti-fascism by the late Chandler Brossard published by corona\samizdat, Wake Up. We're Almost There and As the Wolf Howls at My Door, as well as Harsch's own unique The Assassination of Olof Palme, an anthological novel, volumes 1 & 2, and The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas by Harsch himself, and, while I am at it, Harsch's baseball diary Walk Like a Duck, a season of little league baseball in Italy, perhaps the only anti-fascist baseball book ever written, and definitely the only baseball book I have ever read—most engaging in its fasci loci elements. What all these books have in common is a thematic concentration on the disastrous political climate of the United States today and a strong anti-fascist thrust.
Cactus Boots seems to me destined to become the most famous of all these books, and while there is no sense in ranking them (if that were my task I would include Harsch's Skulls of Istria in the above paragraph), the excitement of receiving a great fat novel ahead of US readers (I got mine straight from Slovenia on Friday and read it intensively until a short while ago, not resting to absorb the pure experiences of the book as the notion of this essay about a much needed convergence began coursing through my mind as I read) perhaps part of that notion, but also judging from the extraordinary inclusiveness of Freedenberg's novel and its pointed focus on perhaps the most metaphorically frightening organs of the fascist mentality—destruction of the word. In the baseball book, Harsch's son is playing baseball in the near environs of Trieste and Monfalcone, the very region the fueled the Italain fascist—and colonial—irredentist movement, and where up to this very second Italians of modest and well-behaved aspect unquestionably live amongst a terrain of lies marked by monuments to a valor that never amounted to anything but horrific death to Italians and a victorious Italy that glorified military involvement on the terrain they could not hold but were granted by their allies despite their military failures, always at the expense of indigenous peoples, mostly Slovenes and Croats. The immediate result of post war mania was D'Anunzio's bizarre assault on Rijeka, staging near Monfalcone (where three little league teams play, one of them, in Redipuglia, in plain sight of one of the grotesque fascist monuments ever built), marching to Trieste and beyond. The extension of D'Annunzio's mania was the realpolitik of Mussolini's fascism, which attacked the Slovene word, the Slovene language being outlawed for virtually the entire span between the world wars in all territories in which Italians ruled Slovenes. It's no news that fascists (let us not require this puny author to list what are essentially synonyms, like dictatorship) require censorship, and it is right that they do so if Phillip Freedenberg is onto something, for the ultimate triumph in his novel is saving the word, both within his book, and if I am onto something, in the reading world of an increasingly fascist United States.
In the United States, readers now more than ever celebrate a period of literary blossoming that occurred from, say, the mid-1950s when Gaddis’ The Recognitions was published, through the emergence of writers such as Barth, Hawkes, Gass, Pynchon, Wallace, and Vollmann, that they speak of in the past tense even though many, even Alexander Theroux, are still alive. Recently, more than once, I have read critics who were discussing excitedly the state of the US novel in paradoxically pessimistic terms as one question persists: who is next? Anyone? Rikki Ducornet? Too old. Vollmann? If he mitotes. Pynchon? Even he will die one day. Through excess of love of a generation off writers, it seems to me, the US literary community, already a survivalist phenomenon in and of itself, is humming along to a long dirge, expecting nothing. And they are right that Murakami Haruki will save no one.
But the question occurs to me: who did Pynchon save after Gravity’s Rainbow? Who did Gaddis save in his Recognitions? Granting that novels that are written to recurrently delve into the mystery of the ‘human condition’ will not always have an historical or political sheen, and that Gaddis’ JR is insuperable political satire, the general thrust of the books of this period, or, at the very least, the critics who rightly laud them, is stylistic mastery. Thus do these books cohere and rise above others and meet the books of previous literary movements. Yet, to my mind, a movement is only as good as its autonomous desire to persevere. The greatest failure of the English literary conglomerate of the 20th century has been the persistent refusal to bring James Joyce’s Finnnegans Wake into the practical canon, or, say, the toolbox of the workshop.
Luckily, Finnegans Wake still exists, as do Dadaists, Surrealists, Symbolists, and masters of all eras, epochs, movements, all of which, it seems, are instinctively, as is only perhaps obvious, anti-fascist—Rabelais more than any in my estimate. But the engaged world literature of recent years has been far from an exalted US literary feature. Sebald and the too little known Daša Drndić are perhaps the most well-known in Europe, but the Gaddis-Vollmann continuum features only Vollman as a dedicated engaged writer. Yet as a novelist, he lacks the esprit of most of his compeers. What America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: a Diagnostic, particularly as it is published by the press that Harsch has used to bring out his own Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas, reprint Skulls of Istria—as pointed a work of anti-fascism as any I have read by a US writer (if I may still call him that)—and the utterly original Assassination of Olof Palme, which Harsch told me was in large part his apology at not going far enough into and at the derangement of the United States in Eddie Vegas, what Freedenberg’s opus represents to me is the moment when great US modern fiction becomes definitively engaged. This is where the apology fits in, where I pat some oblivious genius on the back and say it’s okay to write brilliantly about grandma and your traumas overcome, yet there is an urgency that this time seems to be screaming, an urgency to Phillip Freedenberg’s refrain: ‘This is a possible world.’ And this is where Sesshu Foster comes most brilliantly alive as little known as he is, for each of his utterances in one way or another is rage enwrapped and alive for the sake of his own children and all the other children to come or not to come. Foster writes informed by all those who informed the Gaddis-Vollmann continuance, and remembering all of their predecessors, and he writes every word for the sake of real, living children throughout the world, and if he does write funny books, he is not laughing deep inside, and he is not reading Gaddis through Vollman—he’s reading history and its vomitus lived in today. His books are, combined with the others of the post critically lauded authors mentioned herein compelled by the need for the children of his species to survive; while Freedenberg’s is written in the faint hope that they will thrive. Harsch’s books are meant to ensure that readers remain on their toes, that they not backslide, that they learn what crimes are sludging their minds and remain stuck under their fingernails.
Perhaps this is the mere raving a man excited upon finishing a book. If that’s true, let me say this: I feel something akin to this quite rarely, and even if I was thrilled similarly when I read Harsch’s novels, I was not optimistic. Far from it. Right now I am extremely optimistic, and ‘This is a possible world,’ and there, right there! Is page two of America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: a Diagnostic.

Klaus Hauser, Stuttgart

[William Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

I appreciated the ambition shown in writing this novel. The meta-experimentation of ordering a book from Slovenia about waiting for a book from Slovenia was fun, but the execution of the actual prose was extremely lacking for me.

The text is completely dominated by long passages and asides that are completely manic in their length/scope. Some dialogue and human moments within the story could have done a world of good for tying these long passages down and getting the author's points across, but the book is utterly devoid of any real human dialogue at all. There are really no characters either, for that matter. For a book where the author is the main character, we gain almost no sense of who he is as a person in these 550+ pages where everything occurs from his POV.

Ultimately, I think that the book was simply written far too quickly given its scope. Despite my not liking the book, I'd consider reading this author again if he releases something in another few years.

Song choice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7JG6...

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

«Life was everywhere, as the book had become an obsessive, constantly expanding universe in my head.»

I had the honor of being one of the very first readers of this book thanks to my proximity to Izola, Slovenia, where the publisher of this book, Rick Harsch, lives and has set up Corona\Samizdat. A few weeks earlier, I, too, had ordered a copy of The Manifold Destiny of Eddie Vegas, almost as if I wanted to emulate the epiphanic spark of creativity that had come over author Phillip Freedenberg as he awaited his copy and began communicating with Rick Harsch, which served as catalyst for the inception of this opus. But upon reading the Book, I realized only Phillip Freedenberg could write a work of this magnitude, scope, and ambition.

At times, you’ll wonder if he isn’t on some LSD-induced, exotic, transcendental-meditation-enforced transhumance throughout every wrinkle of his brain, and reporting his own hero’s quest underneath the gallons of ink he’s spitting out on an inhuman, self-imposed schedule, or if he isn’t simply an AI in righteous writer’s clothing, hiding behind a beard and white glasses. But regardless of this marvelous man’s real identity, you’ll know the Book in your hands is real, and unlike anything you’ve ever witnessed.

If I had to prove to someone who doesn’t read that literature can be extremely fun, engaging, gripping, riveting, heartwarming, heartbreaking, and any other synonym you can find for roughly any available human emotion, this is the Book I’d pick. Because this is all of the above, and more.

To read America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic is to expand your consciousness beyond your bodily confines, to finally be heard, to not be frightened to put your hand out for someone to guide you through this broken world that feels like it doesn’t belong to you, and to meet likeminded individuals as you collectively ascend to the Unified Field.

This Book is Phillip Freedenberg’s love declaration to words, language, writing, reading, fiction, and nonfiction.
Read this Book if you’re looking for a postmodernist narrative that doesn’t insult its readers, but rather deeply cares about them, and makes them feel their own importance they have forgotten.
Read this Book if you’re looking for brilliant, intelligent, hilarious, absurdist humor.
Read this Book if you’re looking for a deeply philosophical, psychological work that challenges your beliefs, and what the world wants you to believe.
Read this Book if you’re looking for thoroughly researched, unusual subjects such as neuroscience and pataphysics that teach you new information you would’ve otherwise never stumbled upon.
Read this Book if you’re looking for a work that is brilliantly interconnected within itself, with an adventure that travels the book around 360 degrees, inside and out.
Read this Book if you’re looking for an author’s earnest dedication to his work, a perfectionist working against the clock, a writer who has in mind all of his readers because he, too, is one of them; one of us.
Read this Book if you like sci-fi, or cyberpunk genres, but are rarely satisfied with the deeper meaning of what you’ve read in those fields.
Read this Book if you’re burned out from your readings, if you’ve lost all hope for contemporary fiction, if you’re disgruntled with all the rules and structures that govern literature.
Here you’ll find the most liberating, refreshing, idiosyncratic writing in the form of an amalgamation of styles and substances from the golden days of what we love, and the days that are yet to come, that will inevitably feel new, even to the most well-read people out there.

I say this as a reader who went into this with absolute objectivity, and fell in love along the way. Phillip Freedenberg has been waiting 20 years to write this book—and you can see that in the creativity oozing out of every single page—and has found the perfect moment in time, with the perfect partner in crime, Jeff Walton, and the wonderful illustrations that will ensure you are deep inside this possible world, as well as the work of art that is the cover, which will become a collection of checkpoints for when you’re looking back at this wonderful reading experience. It’s absolutely criminal that we had never heard of these two bags of brilliant beards before. And sure, there are a handful of typos here and there, and the dialogue feels a little stilted at times (though one might argue it fits the tone of the story), but it’s all fairly negligible in the shadow of all the madness it contains. Believe me when I say I hadn’t read a book of which I’ve loved every last page in a long time.

The aim of this novel is gigantic, and it comes from an independent, non-profit press. The least you could do is give it a try, let it into your life, and never look back because, trust me, you won’t need to. I really hope this Book gets to do what it wishes to do. Hats off to you, Freedenberg/Walton/Harsch, word/symbol/thought. I thought my falling in love days were behind me.

[Christopher Murtagh · Rating 5 out of 5]

The "Godspeed You Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fist's like Antenna's to Heaven" of books.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

All Hail Calcaltalume, Fool the Body, Free the Mind, Yield to the Duo. These phrases are repeated throughout the novel America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots a Diagnostic (for the purposes of this nonsense I am writing I will refer to it as cactus boots if I even refer to the title again, we'll see), on the surface it seems like nonsense, and throughout the novel, the nonsense slowly takes on a logic and serves as a mantra to unite the reader and writer (and illustrator and publisher in this case) to transcend the words on the page and enter a higher dimension, the great beyond or Unified Field if you will, the realm where the different branches of physics harmonizes, or in my case, a state of entertainment and word hysteria. Now what is the novel about? It's about the writer and illustrator writing what in the book will be the revolutionary book passed between rebellious readers rebelling against dystopian governments cracking down on the written word to propagate the influence of words throughout society, this book in the book will becalled and ends up being called America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots a Diagnostic, the book is about the writer and illustrator working on the book that I read, so yeah, it's a metafictional odyssey with a unique cast of characters ranging from an ethnobiologist with a preference for words beginning with the letter c, elephant riders stalking the labyrinth of words in search of certain words, an oppressive government straight out of a Bradbury novel, or in this novel's case, a reflection of the current state of affairs in 2020 or so since the real world parallels are inherently obvious, and in these days, very ironic since in the fiction the book is considered contraband while in today's world it can't be shipped to the states but a preachy polemic it is not, it's an effective back drop to write about the impending word wars and the inevitable war of the words as Phil and Jeff embark on their interdimensional quest from living room to the attic in search of paper and other such writing implements to effectively finish their manuscript as they attempt to complete their Odyssean quest to deliver their manuscript to Ithaca I mean Izola at the altar of the Cactus Boots in Rick Harsch's press. Despite the oppressive backdrop, the book has a cheerful nature as it celebrates the creative process of writing throughout, which shines through in the act of reading, at least it did for me, at first the book took a few pages for me to get my bearings due to the scattered nature in the outset, but after say 44 pages the internal logic clicks, and as a consequence, the entertainment value skyrocketed immensely, it's one of my favorite reads of the year, I won't say it's on par with Pale Fire personally, another metafictional ergodic novel but then Nabokov is a master firing off on all cylinders for that one, whereas America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots a Diagnostic is a debut, and for a debut novel (at least I believe it is a debut novel, I could be wrong but I doubt it), he goes all in and in my opinion doesn't miss, maybe it could use some refining, but I don't care, I had fun a lot of fun now where was I? If the idea of reading a metafictional novel along the lines of the movie Adaptation with Nicolas Cage told in the hallucinogenic style of The Holy Mountain while discussing heady physics and math ideas to effectively navigate the Seahorse Valley and other such Mandelbrot Sets to arrive at the fourth dimensional fractal Tesseract Cactus to ascend into the Unified Field or if you have a passion for the word fractal then this is the book for you, It was for me, Fractal is a great word. In writing this I suppose it also reminded me of another novel, Solenoid by Cartarescu, both deal with high minded concepts while adhering to a metafictional framework, I am not sure which one I prefer, but tonally they couldn't be any more different, Solenoid is more of a downer novel compared to the humor in this one. So yeah, that's it, one of my favorite reads of the year, it brought me a lot of joy reading it, great book

[Seth Austin]

In the late ‘40s, a well-known graphic artist by the name of M.C. Escher printed a lithograph that would come to be recognised as one of the defining works of paradoxical visual art: a pair of hands drawing one another. The left hand creates the right hand creates the left hand creates the…

Disregarding that drawing’s impeccable craftsmanship, Escher used this work as a means to address the age-old conundrum of ‘the chicken and the egg’. America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic is simultaneously both a response to and complement for this drawing, acting as one of the most self-referential, metafictional, paradoxical novels I’ve experienced. If in reading this, the word “hyperbole” is edging into your mind, I invite you to take a quick look at the novel’s synopsis:

"A book about writing a book while waiting for a book to arrive in the mail.".

Existing in a too-close-for-comfort dystopia, the author, illustrator, and publisher act as the novel’s protagonists as they set out to do exactly as the blurb describes. Freedenberg and Walton explore the processes, obstacles, and outcomes that result in the pursuit of literature. They intend to construct a novel while deconstructing the novel; a hero’s quest principally concerned with the conservation of creativity in a culture whose collective Glasgow Coma score is rapidly approaching zero.

Creation and destruction are two of the hands that draw each other throughout these 578 pages. In the process of writing about writing about writing, the narrators’ respective and collective identities are sacrificed as their work consumes them entirely, and they’re absorbed into the artifact that will undoubtedly outlive them. I mean this in both the pinky-wagging, obnoxiously high-brow philosophical sense and the literal sense. Those of you who have already entered the Word Tunnels will know exactly what I mean by this. Are you picking up the contradictions as I’m writing here? Get comfortable with them, as they are one of the many currencies The Cult of the Cactus Boots trades in.

I don’t see it as my place to try and produce a definitive analysis of this book, as I suspect the author intended every individual reader to foster their own relationship with it. Nor do I view this little thought-vomit of a Goodreads post anything resembling a critical “review”. I’m more interested in offering a recommendation to curious readers who’ve seen the Big Green Brick floating around on various social media channels. If you’re someone who’s interested in a book that constantly draws attention to its own artifice… someone who craves complexity… someone who’s tired of the tried-and-true conventions of narrative structure and to read something unlike anything they’ve read before… then stop reading my nonsense and go find yourself a copy. Until you do, those hands are just going to keep drawing one another while they wait.

Congrats on the stellar achievement Phil and Jeff, you both have created something incredibly unique.

Edit: I will attempt a more thorough and conventional analysis of the novel once I've allowed for some digestion time. Stay tuned.

[Simon Robs · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's good policy for me to wait a few days to reflect, let sink or swim or sink in to what extent my immediate gush would yield if only slightly to the entropic fade and, it did, slightly off in effusive praise for taking this (((the))) *reader* into the "Cactiverse" of "AatCotCB" - the meta ride thriller/mystery/detective story diatribe/diagnostic/delivery spate of ideas for a gathered consensus of reading minds to open and recieve the WORD(s) in fevered pitch that unshakles nay 'unravels' a way in/up/out of mundane unheightened reality. Their ((may be)) some blatent .. ironic marketing .. much mentioned books both "Cactus" & "Eddie Vegas" along with protags real or imagined cohort triumvirate-authors Frreedenburg/Walton/Harsch but so, it's part of (((the))) mystery. Are these shills for real? Is there a there there? I bet shrooms so....

[Noah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work of post-modern maximalist fiction begins fractured, with multiple voices lending to a deconstruction and reconstruction of narrative. The author, character(s), unified field, the book itself are actually tuning the reader; preparing him/her for an initiation (Ch3) into an unprecedented mode of storytelling. A mixed-media phantasmagorical extravaganza, where our narratives are the ground of being and inspired creativity is the highest aim of living.
The setting: a hellish, alternative-present, dystopian America. The techno-apocalypse is underway. President Ralph and the Total Information Control Initiative, in league with the conglomerate NeuroForm, are waging a word-war, effectively banning all creative endeavor. In the midst of which, our main characters order a book (illegal) and decide to write a book (high-crime), and a hallucinogenic combination (a la Phillip K Dick) of the hero's quest, lost and struggling humanity, alien transmissions, horror, absurdism, Hermetic philosophy, and a cyclic, universal cosmology ensue to a fever pitch, literally. At turns hilarious and disorienting, ultimately compelling, you have never experienced anything like America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic.
Culminating in word-fever and a meta-fiction par excellence, the book/reader dichotomy is laid bear to illustrate, in a glorious climax, how we construct meaning as human beings. In short, how we LIVE.
This is new fiction. This is the truth of why we love stories and how we derive meaning from our experience as readers, movie watchers, and content consumers of all ilk.
Enter the Unified Field, the waters are just fine :)

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seeing as the book is still new, I don’t want to say too much, so as not to give any spoilers. What I *will* say is it’s... A mystical, metafictional odyssey that is absurdly fun at times and deeply poetic at others. Freedenberg certainly has a way with words. The writing is wildly beautiful, and I’m left to wonder... how does he think this stuff up? The Walton illustrations are also top notch. The book is beautifully done. I can’t wait to see what Freedenberg and Walton do next.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is amazing.

I did a video review to analyze and celebrate this mind bending work of metafiction.

https://youtu.be/DBA4s8Vv_lM

In this video, I discuss the mind-bending, metafictional odyssey, America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic by Phillip Freedenberg, with visuals and beautiful illustrations and typesetting by Jeff Walton, published by Rick Harsch at corona\samizdat books.

It is difficult to describe this novel as anything other than post-post modern as it uses metafiction to subvert postmodern language deconstruction, asserting the meaning and the power of words, not just to signify the world but to create a new universe, an alternate dimension, and an escape from an authoritarian government. Freedenberg uses words to create The Unified Field.

With imagery and stylistic maximalism reminiscent of post-modern giants, such as Thomas Pynchon and David Foster Wallace, Freedenberg invites us to join his Cult of the Cactus Boots, an inter-dimensional, subversive faction spanning human history and multiple solar systems, in a celebration of reading, community, and meaning.

Consciousness replacement and elephant-riding twin-Steven Seagals chase the author and the illustrator through the text (literally), as they scale caverns of words, receive thought transmissions, and piece together esoteric histories of communities who refuse to succumb to suppression of thought, making their way to Rick Harsch, the publisher and chief editor of the novel.

When all is said and done, America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots is daring, hilarious, and revelatory of a new mode of fiction, where words are not deconstructed husks of the postmodern era. They are our portal to the Unified Field.
--
Connect with the creators:
IG: cultofthecactusboots
Phillip Freedenberg IG: eraserheadDAD
Jeff Walton IG: matter_interacting
Corona\Samizdat books IG: c_s_tzara
Rick Harsch IG: rick.harsch

https://coronasamizdat.com/

ALL HAIL CALCALTALUME!

[James Vaiana · Rating 5 out of 5]

This Book is a creative engine.

Have you ever felt a little ember of a thought slowly smoldering within your mind, asking “Surely there must be more than this?” but you were unable to make it catch fire? The Book is a full can of kerosene. It’s a box of matches and a pile of kindling. It’s the tool to turn that little ember into a raging inferno of possibility.

America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic presents a new possible world that can be attained by embracing creativity and rejecting standard modes of thought. Phillip Freedenberg set out to change the world, to “enlighten in a reader a discovery of a sense of connectedness to a deeper fabric of human togetherness” and he has succeeded on every level.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime reading experience. The act of participating in this book will leave you better off at the end of your journey than you were at the start. It takes the classic hero’s quest and shatters all expectations of structure, immediately leaving the reader feeling disoriented. After you get your bearings, you start to realize that the shards of that structure have been/are being arranged, rearranged, and back again, in such a way that continues to impress even after you’ve reached the end. The Book is full of gorgeous illustrations by Jeff Walton that highlight and enhance the entire experience. Freedenberg shows off a staggering depth of knowledge here and takes the reader on countless absurdist adventures through dystopian hellscapes and previously unimagined worlds that left me speechless at times and laughing out loud at how incredible the whole thing was at others. You’ll be left wanting more, and you can have it because this is your guidebook and gateway to Freedenberg’s Unified Field.

You’ll realize that this creative engine only continues firing when fed with more creativity and that the world this engine built/is building/continues to build truly is possible if you’re willing to be a part of it.

“Welcome; this is a possible world.”

[Geoffrey Knight · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novel was a special experience for me. America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: a Diagnostic is a novel crafted and formed in respect and love for the creative spirit. Phillip Freendenberg’s wild and experimental prose pairs perfectly with the beautiful illustrations of Jeff Walton. The spells of “word fever” read like a Gysin/Burroughs cut-up fever dream. It’s filled with poetry, psychedelic situations, garbled cryptic messages from a expatriate author and moments of genuine human vulnerability. It’s the first time a book has accurately identified the place we all go while reading a good book, the“Unified Field” the place where all our stories and narratives intersect. If you are into postmodern fiction, if you are into experimental fiction or if you just simply love reading I highly recommend this book. Reading it has meant a lot to me. Join the Cult of the Cactus Boots. Ascend to the Unified Field. All hail Calcaltalume!

[Jesse Farmer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fireworks show of ideas and an insistent defiance of brevity. A very fun read that at times felt like a vintage SubGenius sermon overflowing with pure spout driven by a Hypercleatean Slack induced hypnosis.

Yes, at times it’s seemingly needlessly verbose and erudite, but always with a subtle wink and nod that maintained a perfect sense of levity.

Does the book sell itself too hard? Maybe? Does that take away from the sheer fun of getting lost in this lovingly constructed word funhouse? Not really!

Only real criticism is that the main characters felt more like devices to carry the story forward than actual fleshed out people, which is incredibly ironic considering they’re the book’s author and artist. I just found myself wanting to know more about who they really were, rather than just what they had to do.

Nonetheless, if you’re looking for fun loving, high concept experimental psychedelic fiction in line with the best of Robert Anton Wilson, you will not be disappointed :)

[Andrew Skelton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Your mileage may vary depending on your taste for sipping no gulping from an unswerving, onrushing firehose of ideas, images, and narrative styles. Detailed, technical prose containing the entire universe (onlooking readers’ and future film adaptation viewers’ eyes, twin Steven Seagall elephant riders, word tunnels, competitive ironing rules and matches, Mandelbrot sets, disappearing hands, cosmic pools of neologisms…) slowly almost imperceptibly lifting the readers from geodesic Earth bound narratives into the vibrating unified field far beyond traditional narrative forms.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m not sure where to start with reviewing a book like America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic. I heard about it like most people through others posting about it online. As someone who is a fan of the absurdity and experimentation of sci fi and maximalist novels of the 1970s, I was instantly intrigued by what I heard, except this was a book from 2021, looking to update themes and reach a more current audience.

When I heard that the only way you could acquire a copy of America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic was by emailing a man in Slovenia, paypaling him 30€, and waiting weeks for a handwritten package to arrive, I was sold. This blending of the experience of reading the book with the experiences of the real world was such an intrigue, and little did I know this would only be the beginning.

I don’t read many modern fiction books. I’ve enjoyed some but I find that they mainly follow a pattern of very simple prose and formulaic story beats, time tested to find the easiest and most effective path to emotional connection with its readers. It’s almost like watching a Hollywood movie. While it is unfair of me to compare mainstream publisher books, dead set on reaching the New York Times Best Seller List™ with an independently published book written with the intent of expressing and inspiring pure creativity, I do think it is worth drawing the comparison to show how different this book is to other 2021 releases; as well as experimental books that may have come before it.

I would compare the reading experience of reading America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic with that of playing an indie video game, something like Everything or Superliminal. These games have goals and tasks at hand but they are more about exploring a world designed with the developer’s imagination as well as getting the player to think in creative ways that challenge their current understanding of what is possible.

Author, Phillip Freedenberg, describes America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic as “a book about writing a book, while waiting for a book to arrive in the mail”. This is a great elevator pitch but it doesn’t really encompass what this book truly is. While I don’t think I can exactly capture all that this book is about, I will try. America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic is a book about the creative process, getting an idea, building upon it, and the struggles to see it through. This process is told in an epic, hero’s journey tale that features Freedenberg, illustrator Jeff Walton, and publisher Rick Harsch as actual characters in the book. Once again the line between our world and the world of the book blurs.

America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic takes place in an alternate 2020 America, there are many similarities and just as many differences. America is in a civil war. President RALPH has banned the printed word and is enforcing this policy through the help of the Total Information Control Initiative. Most of the population is complacent in this being absorbed in their Screen 6 Sync headsets.

The world Freedenberg creates is unique and attention grabbing but it is hardly the focus of the book. The book focuses on expressing pure creativity. Just flip through the book, looking at any page that may catch your interest, and you will start to get a feeling of this. There are many surreal and bizarre images illustrated throughout the book, many of which take up multiple pages. The rules of syntax are bent, twisted, and molded into something unlike any other book. Words become more than just a story read from left to right, from the top of the page to the bottom. They become a visual experience in their own right. Never has the phrase “the words jumped off the page” felt as applicable as describing America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic.

While reading this book I truly had no idea what was coming next. It really felt like the story was being written as I was reading. There are so many twists and turns, dragging readers in one direction or the other, even if they are not yet ready to go down that path. It is very similar to the works of Thomas Pynchon in that way. The difference here is that Freedenberg offers a more approachable take that looks to reach readers of the 2020’s.

I’ve seen a few interviews with Freedenberg where he says he wants to be creative and experimental but still have it be fun. This is definitely one of the more approachable maximalist books I’ve read. There are many times Freedenberg will remind readers of what is going on or readdress something that happened hundreds of pages back to help tie the story together. That being said, don’t think this book is straightforward or simple. It is still very much a maximalist book. I’m sure I’ve missed a good chunk of what this book has to offer on just this first read through.

I read this, nearly 600 page book, in about 3 weeks. I’m not typically a fast reader and I’ve heard of people finishing this in an even shorter period. I put down everything else I was reading once I started this and only wanted to be absorbed by the “Cactiverse”. Between the imaginative world created and Freedenberg’s writing style, I was never bored.

Like many books, you often start reading it and don’t really know where it is going or how you will like it. One of the first “word fever” sections had me thinking “Wow, this book really follows all of the maximalist tropes” as it rambled on for pages with seemingly incomprehensible prose. This pattern was eventually broken by a breaking of the fourth wall, a common theme of this book. The character of Rick Harsch comes in with a very similar opinion and advises Freedenberg that word fever will lose the audience. From there I started to get a sense this wasn’t going to be a book like any other I’ve read. I don’t want to delve too much into it, as I think it’s best for readers to experience it on their own but this is one of the best components of the book.

I believe Freedenberg has captured the psychedelic experience better than anyone else I’ve read in terms of creating that feeling through the written word. I don’t mean psychedelic in terms of seeing surreal and otherworldly images, although there is plenty of that in this book. What I mean is capturing the thought process your mind goes through on a trip. If you are in an introspective setting you can begin to explore the world and your mind in ways that you never would have thought possible prior. Barriers are shattered and limitations are removed. From this point you can experience new creative, emotional, or spiritual depths; something that is often life changing as it sticks with you long after the trip has ended. This is a book that I don’t see leaving my consciousness for a long time.

The main theme of America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic is a call to action to be creative. Whatever your medium, Freedenberg challenges you to push your imagination and look beyond where you currently stand. Reading the last word fever section really did this to me as when I put the book down to take a break I was left trying to build new word phrases and sentences for a good few hours after.

In 2019, I came across the album The First Glass Beach Album by the band Glass Beach. This album blew me away with what was possible from a band when it came to making interesting and experimental music while still being accessible and approachable. I sent it to every one of my friends who makes music, even if they weren’t into the aesthetic sound of the album, they couldn’t deny the boundary that was pushed by this album. America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic gives me a very similar feeling.

Now in 2022, I am telling all of my friends who read about this book and even those who don’t are gaining intrigue. I have shown this book to a few friends and had them flip through my copy and they are drawn in by the art and cryptic nature of it. These are friends who, when I tell them about other books I’ve read, are usually disinterested or are unlikely to ever read a copy themselves. With America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic they are interested. While I’m still not sure these nonreader friends will actually read this book, it is a step forward I’ve never seen caused by anything else. Freedenberg also looks to “Make America Read Again” with this book and I have to say he is succeeding, even if it is only on a micro level at this moment.

I should state for anyone who has made it this far in the review a few qualifiers for readers and criticism. If you are the kind of reader who doesn’t like characters talking about doing things instead of doing them you probably won’t like this book. There are plenty of times characters Phillip and Jeff discuss their plan of action, going over each step. You eventually get to see them actually go on their adventure but it is rehearsed multiple times before you get there.

There is also an arrogance that can be perceived by Freedenberg describing his book as the book that will save America. I totally get where someone could be annoyed by reading that multiple times but the examples of this book’s power in the real world, as stated above, is enough for me to give it a pass or at least not take it at face value.

This is also one of the most abstract books I’ve ever read. Being able to make sense of the world and see how each part works together can be a struggle. Some of this is due to the nature of a maximalist novel and I’m sure I will catch more on a second reading but it can also be very vague when it comes to what it wants to convey, some of which I’m not sure is entirely intentional.

Overall, this book lived up to the hype that was presented to me before reading it. If this is all that Freedenberg ever writes it is a great exhibition of his skill but it also works as a gateway to a world of much more in depth and creative works, if he chooses to write more.

[William III · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been diligent to avoid spoilers. While some of the below will appear as spoilers to those who have already been initiated into the Cult, I assure you that my words do not lead directly to the Unified Field. For that, you must take the journey.

Late author William S. Burroughs referred to the whole of his writing as the Word Hoard—a snapshot of his mind over 40+ years. Phillip/Jeff have produced their own Word Hoard, a sprawling snapshot of consciousness: that of the reader, of the author(s), and of the book itself.

Reading this book is not a passive experience; America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic (CB) is an exercise in illumination: the spine of the book’s cover refers to itself as a part of the narrative, commonly used words form portals by which the reader can traverse the larger story; and form, function, and content are continuously eviscerated and then made whole. The verbal gymnastics are not present to prop-up the author, rather, the verbosity is part and parcel to present a Word Hoard that touches every human on the planet and helps guide them to an illuminated future.[1]

If all words can be read, all words can be used, re-used, re-mixed.

The Cult is out to inspire, to protect creativity and help it flourish. By way of stunning, surreal, and absurd metaphor, Freedenburg paints a terrifying vision of our current screen addictions. From the inside of an America collapsing into riots and narcotized dopamine addiction, the reader climbs back through the core of our existence: our ability to share and communicate our unique perspectives on reality.

The world has devolved into simulacra: a prison of symbols that do not refer to real things. They are symbols of symbols and often symbols of themself. Like fiat currency, we are left only with our belief in their value. This medicated state helps us forget that we have an individual responsibility to recognize value rather than consume a curated sense of value based on facade.

In CB, exposure to the government-funded message is submission to the Total Information Control Initiative (TICI), an organization whose mission is obliteration of the written word. By wresting control of rebellious notions, president RALPH and NeuroForm plot to enslave humanity to the Screen Sync 6 system of continuous neural stimulation. Addiction to Screen Sync 6 is rapid and total; citizens across the country flock to dopamine distribution hubs, unable and unwilling to act unless a hit of dopamine will result.

Freedenberg takes care to remind us that America does not arrive at president RALPH or the Screen Sync 6 without a long history of atrocities. This is a key and welcomed component to any discussion of the here and now in America. We are an accumulation of war crimes and without understanding the breadth of our barbarity it is impossible to comprehend the numbing violence we unleash against the entire planet.

The Author and The Narrator remain disciplined and maintain an even keel. As CB explodes out into kaleidoscopic wordplay and imagery and you feel your understanding of the words peeling away, Freedenberg anchors the story and guides the Reader into the next level of the quest. CB is a mantra, to be reviewed, reread, and lived. Breathe in, breathe out, slow karate.

If you’re anything like me and you look up every word you can’t immediately define, you’ll also get a crash course in brain anatomy.


[1] Even if your get-down is extreme competitive ironing.

[Alexander Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Are you ready for this? America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots is fiction - yet it is also non-fiction. It is a schematic, sometimes reminding me of a hardware manual - yet it is also spiritual. This book is more than a book. This book is a pyramid of perception, rising in tiers, somehow escaping the confines of the pages. This story exists inside AND outside the pages, as hard as that is to describe.

For the concrete plot: the story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. Books are illegal here. So what do the brave Phillip Freedenberg and Jeff Walton do? Why, they decide to write a book, while waiting for another book to arrive in the mail. Yes - this is a book about writing a book while waiting for another book to arrive. With the help of their personal idol (publisher and veritable Wise Man Rick Harsch) and his guru-like messages from the Great Beyond broadcast from a very strange radio, a mission begins for these two artists. Time converges. The metaphoric becomes literal and back the other way. Nothing is steadfast and nothing is certain. Anything is possible in these pages - these pages that aren't pages at all, but portals into a place where language itself can be travelled through. The goal of these two souls? To 'Make America Read Again!' But seriously...this doesn't even scratch the surface of the plot.

Here, you'll find time travellers, Steven Seagal twins riding deadly elephants, a cult dedicated to justice and freedom and ascension. You'll find magic and fear and whackiness. Secret history. Metafiction. Autobiography. The presentation of the book itself is stunning. The illustrations by Jeff are incredible, the prose by Phillip filled with quotable passages deep with intense philosophical meaning.

This book is a wild ride, the kind of passage everyone will receive something different from. All in an effort to make us understand a special truth (at least, this is my take): books are magic. They are word portals. We cease being who we are when we read and we join the Unified Field. People interested in meditation will know what this is. The fact this book is meta also manages to enfold the reader into its narrative, as it enfolds the writer/illustrator themselves.

Phillip says it spot on in an early-ish passage, and I will end this review with a well-meant attempt at paraphrasing by using an example: choose a book. Open the cover. Get lost in the lines of text. We don't see the words, the ink on paper. We see through and within. Books are literally gateways to a place our minds have free reign, but our bodies cannot go. And there (for our minds, in those word tunnels, and for our bodies, staring at the pages) in that moment, feel the eyes and minds of all those who are also reading that particular book. Look at the page in front of you not as a page, but as a window; see the face of other readers looking back at you, and know that you aren't alone in your journey.

Thanks, Phil. This was bonkers.

[Luke Delin · Rating 5 out of 5]

"How did the world ever let the words slip away from the sound of its voice?"

I never thought I would be inside a book, literally inside... and find myself amongst the sprawling, fascinating combinations of phrases, as if the words were streams of rivers going by where I was swimming along, a word myself, a set of words, a paragraph, a Book.

While America and the Cult of the Cactus Boots: A Diagnostic (2021) is indeed about America in its current precarious literary state, so too does it centre around the very Earth, and even beyond, to interplanetary and interdimensional proportions. Yet it always feels eminently grounded through the three protagonists, whom we embark on our journey with into the Unified Field. Note the BRILLIANT accompanying art by Jeff Walton as it shows even deeper the absurd magic. Note the juggernaut intensity of Phillip Freedenberg and his missing hands...

There is such intelligence in the Book, it seems as if no information in the entire universe is left undiscovered or undistorted. We follow keenly our band of underground writers, who seek to publish a Book in a world of Word Wars, these lights among a literary fog of darkness. Can the TICI stop them? Will people stop being killed on the street for writing words? Will the ancient animal sounds be heard again, all is revealed (or not) in time... a time beyond past and future. It is truly a work of genius, and yet so full of heart! It seeks to remind us that the ancient glacial ice of the Earth contains all the words ever uttered by the past of human existence. We enter the realm of 'word tunnels', portals into the text. We find ourselves becoming the words, trapped in there beneath the ink. We are reminded with angelic detail that books are the stories of civilisations, but that they also pose a threat to all who want to control us. I would never have thought such a book could exist, but now I see it couldn't be any other way. It had to be written, it had to be read, it sings the song of creation, of perseverance, of meaning. Please, go find this incredible fractal novel from Corona/Samizdat and see for yourself. Enter the Unified Field, and feel yourself bounding off the surface of the planet, and into a sky of raining words, these words that will save us.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF 330 pages or so.
Lord did I try.
I had a friend who enjoys the same maximalist over the top post-pomo lit go so far as to thrust this book into my hands. His description of it, “a book about waiting for a book” sounded… well. Suffice to say I thought the book would be more conventional. Instead I was met with a bebop automatic writing exercise that strains at the boundaries of what a novel actually is. Here there is only the faintest thread of a narrative, hell, there is barely a narrator. The closest we get is a collective first person account of what I guess is the author, the illustrator and perhaps the elusive Rick Harsch.
And it’s kind of cool.
As an art and literary exercise this book is interesting. It seems to want to push the boundaries of what the form can do, with a nerdy, understated “fuck you” to the critics who say they shouldn’t. I respect that.
However the book does sacrifice narrative momentum for this. So often while I reading I wondered to myself what in the fuck was actually going on, and further, to what greater purpose? So often the book takes on the ethos that it is meant to save the world from those who would attempt to control the way we think. Again, I applaud this as a reason to write, but I’m not sure this quite sticks the landing.

In the end, my experience with Cactus Boots went out in a whimper. I left it alone for a week and when I came back I wondered just why I would bother to continue. That was that. I couldn’t go on.

Respect to Freedenberg and Walton who are both clearly, brilliant talented dudes, but this didn’t work for me.
2 stars

[David Vardeman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early on in my reading of America and the Cult of the Cactus Books I began thinking, oddly enough, of the Revelation of St. John, with its strange symbols and the false prophet leading those who fall under his powerful delusion, like lemmings, against the power that shall judge and ultimately prevail. In both Freedenberg's and Walton's book and the Revelation, that power that shall ultimately judge and prevail is The Word, thanks be to God, the sword of truth. The enemy of The Word is, in both books, intent on its destruction. Cactus Boots is an ambitious, stimulating, blessedly hilarious - St. John was not - (see the extended passages in Cactus Boots on competitive ironing, for instance, and the Harsch homunculus if you want to laugh out loud) remodeling of this apocalyptic theme, timely, both panoramic and personal, a work in which I can locate issues of ultimate concern to me in our current climate of hubris and reverence for demagoguery.
On a side note: reading Cactus Boots, I understood for the first time one way of looking at Dada -- as words and symbols in a panic, running for cover for the relative protection of the unified field, away from those who have made or would make venal use of them.
I highly recommend this novel.

[Nickholas Michell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Epiphenomenal debut novel rich with ideas and creative impulses. Brilliant approach to narrative experimentation and mischievously clever with its absurdist, satirical, and philosophical humor as the writer, Phillip Freedenberg and illustrator, Jeff Walton, along with the mysterious correspondence of the publisher, Rick Harsch, take you on quixotic and synchronicity-filled journey that explores different ways to connect with the reader as a work in progress. It feels like a new movement I’m honored to be a part of that is refreshingly inspiring as when I discovered the beats, the surrealists, the maximalists, counterculture literature, the Dadaists, the Situationists, an ode to making cutting edge literary breakthroughs, to manifest planetary art networks! A collaborative society, a new renaissance!

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

If Roth was correct in prophesying the End of Literature, then this is TRVE CVLT. A play on the work of free disassociation. The pan-gnostic mysticism (or whatever) sometimes gets a bit too winky for me, but no biggie. Of no other word-object could you more truly say, "I really got into it!"

[Tom Adamo · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far the weirdest book I’ve ever read but in the best way possible. This was just so much fun to read. It touched on such varied and important topics of censorship, oppression, resignation, brain rot consumption of media, and extreme ironing competitions. Absolutely loved it.