Prescription for a Superior Existence

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A major-league prose writer who has fun in every sentence Jonathan Franzen
A clever speculative tale set against a backdrop of contemporary environmental and political threats The New York Times

Jack Smiths life revolves around work, alcohol, painkillers, and pornography, and he sees no reason to change. But when he falls in love with the daughter of the leader of a new Californian religion known as Prescription for a Superior Existence, his humdrum life is changed forever.

Abducted and enrolled at one of PASEs spiritual training centres near San Francisco, Jacks scepticism is challenged by a sense of community and purpose previously unknown to him. He discovers that he might not be average. He might be extraordinary. But nothing is as it seems, and the question of whether he and those around him are headed toward transcendence or annihilation soon takes on global significance.

Reviews

Josh Emmons has created a wholly original, brave, and disturbingly plausible novel, an existential, theological, fin du monde thriller about star-crossed orphans, twenty-first-century cults, environmental angst, and the extremes and consequences of desire James P. Othmer, author of The Futurist

An acidly hilarious, tightly plotted adventure that folds big themes, romantic moments, and a little thing called the end of the world into its pages. Both a wicked skewering of religious cults and a finely wrought testament to their power, this novel reads like Raymond Chandler rollicking through the house of L. Ron Hubbard. It's as probing and smart as it is moving, hopeful, and sweet Alix Ohlin, author of Babylon and Other Stories

Resembles something Philip K. Dick might have written had he lived to experience the climate crisis and squash risotto New York Times

Author Bio

Born in 1973, Josh Emmons was raised in Northern California and received an MFA and teaching fellowship from the University of Iowa. His debut novel The Loss of Leon Meed won the James Michener-Copernicus Society of America Award in 2005. He currently lives in Los Angeles.