To Celebrate Walker Percy's Birthday Price of "The 41st Sermon" Dropped to 99 Cents

May 28 is the 100th year anniversary of the birth of one of my favorite Southern writers, Walker Percy. I've had a lot of ups and downs in my writing life and in 1992 Percy delivered an extraordinary high point. I had sent him the first chapters of The 41st Sermon hoping he would be willing to read the whole manuscript. I received a note back from him that what I sent read well and I could send the rest. Do so. Waited. Waited. Then a few months later read his obit in the paper. In honor of his 100th birthday I've lowered the price of The 41st Sermon to 99 cents. Episcopal priest is in mid-life and mid-faith crisis.

Read the whole story and the note in previous post here.

The 41st Sermon Discounted to $1.99 until November 12. Reviewer: "Content a Bit Taboo"

The 41st Sermon will be discounted 61 percent from $4.99 to $1.99 until November 12 on Amazon as a Kindle download. It's an erotic, emotional, and -- get this -- theological ride!

Father Talley, a married Episcopal priest, is in mid-life and mid-faith crisis when he goes on his annual self retreat to fish, drink, and write the outlines of his sermons for the upcoming year. Only this time he gets caught up in the phony kidnap plot of a lovely blonde parishioner.

One reviewer had this to say about The 41st Sermon:

Wow. Rarely do I find a book that twists as much as this one. The plot and presentation was excellent, the characters were well developed, and the content a bit taboo. I would recommend this book to any open-minded individual.

If you are a fan of Walker Percy, the great southern writer who burst upon the scene with "The Moviegoer," in 1961, you'll be interested in the Percy connection to The 41st Sermon. Details here. 

The 41st Sermon Up for a Vote of Confidence

The 41st Sermon is one of  nine books first offered by bookkus for reviewers to read, review, and vote on if bookkus should publish it. Entry portal here, I hope.

We are seeing many different publishing efforts in this epublishing age. This is one that I guess you would call crowd-deciding. I suppose it means I should go out there and ask friends, family etc. to vote for my book. Consider yourself asked.

Actually, if it gets you interested in the book, that's what is important to me. I've just done a major re-edit of the manuscript before sending it off for professional editing and proofreading before turning it into a paperback POD. I like The 41st Sermon a lot. But the ebook hasn't done very well. It has a Walker Percy connection, which I've commented on before.

It's also told from the third person POV, but with a lot of thoughts presented by that character in first person. I've now put those in italics. That simple change has given the manuscript a new tension and drama, I think. Much more powerful.

It's a good story and quite erotic. Episcopal priest in mid-life and mid-faith crisis gets caught up in a phony kidnap plot with a blonde parishioner who seduces him and turns out to be the daughter he didn't know about. And that that's just part of Satan's complications!

Here's a non-erotic taste from the beginning and then one from near the end:

He looked up. Phosphenes danced in the pale blue sky the way they did when he closed his eyes. Do people look up at the sky so much because they are curious about the weather or because they are looking hoping to see God up there? Maybe they looked up in fear, afraid that God was up there looking down and seeing everything they did. Maybe we're damned either way. Damned if He isn't up there – damned in the morass of own humanity – and damned if He is up there because we deserve His condemnation.

And so, for the first time in his life, The Reverend Christopher Talley, rector of St. Philip's Episcopal Church, offered up a real prayer to God. A prayer not taken from the Book of Common Prayer, a prayer with neither fine phrases nor elegant, wonderful sounding words, but a prayer without words taken from the book of his own newly discovered soul.