И после прочтения этой сюжетной выжимки становится понятно, что по своей жанровой принадлежности он является не только научной фантастикой, но и политическим триллером. И после прочтения краткой сюжетной выжимки может показаться, что у этого политического триллера довольно увлекательный сюжет. Но это увлекательный сюжет для повести или длинного рассказа. Проблема этого романа, что со всем своим джазом, и бит-поэзией он оставляет не так много места для сюжета. От хорошего политического триллера я бы ожидал более сложных заговоров и больше активных персонажей. Например, после первых я ожидал, что в нем будут действовать неоднозначные черные националисты. То же касается и развития персонажей, что особенно важно для романа. Тут они тоже не особо развиваются, и остаются на уровне повести или рассказа. Проще говоря, они тут довольно одномерные и только отбрасывают тени в пространства большей размерности. Джек Баррон вроде бы имеет недостатки: он представляется как бабник и любитель травки. Но всегда однозначный герой (буквально героический герой) и положительный персонаж. А Говардс — однозначный злодей, буквально Дракула, который ест детей. И никто в тексте не пытается разобраться, как он сколотил капитал, и что у него за семью и окружение. Но хуже всего достается в Саре. Получается, что ее основная роль в тексте — это просто восхищаться Джеком и напоминать читателю, какой он герой. А самая главная ее арка — это самоубийство, где она устранияется, чтобы просто не мешать Джеку быть героем. Я не думаю, что тут дело в какой-то особой гендерной политики. Кажется Спинраду со всей его бит-поэзией просто не хватило места для развития персонажей.

At the same time in the Leach Lake Prison there is Jim Cottonwood, a cellmate of Father Bryce. Jim Cottonwood is a native American and has a shamanistic power to posses and "ride" crows. Jim Cottonwood was sentenced on false charges of raping Judy Jonson. But as a result of these charges Judy Jonson's son Alan believes that he is a son of Jim Cottonwood, and even changes his surname to be Alan Cottonwood. But in fact Alan is a son of Judy's father reverend John Johnson but he doesn't know about it. So, Alan visits Jim Cottonwood in prison and Jim urges him to make a DNA test, which can let him out of prison if he is not his father. Also as a practioner of Native American religion Jim gets a monthly collection of "magical" herbs from a witch doctor for his monthly "sweet lodge". Also, Diana's mother Ms. Turney runs a nursing home, Navaho House, a in the Leech Lake town. One of the nurses there, Luise, is the mother of Jim Cottonwood. And somehow from her Diana gets mandrake, which is one of "magical" herbs used in the native American sweet lodge. Also Diana meets Alan in the Navaho lodge and they fall in love.

So, Diana starts investigating the mandrake roots. But she get's in a car accident, after which she is saved by another prison guard Tommy W. Tommy W takes her to his home, there he installed a personal sauna similar to the sweet lodge in prison. He invites Diana to use his Sauna and they add mandrake roots to the sauna aromatics as Tommy W recognized them as one of the native American "magical" herbs. But after the sauna Diana accidently turns Tommy W into a moose. Then the moose is killed by his own dog Beauty or Beast, a German Shepherd. These scene is a clear parallel to a classical myth "Diana and Actaeon" as Tommy W is described as quite a hunter. But what is important is that Diana has a power not only to see others fursonas but also to turn people to corresponding animals. But this only works if both Diana and her victim are intoxicated on mandrake. Also for some reason her magic don't work on virgins. This power boost was somehow imposed on her by farm's smokehouse's ghost Wes. And Wes wants Diana to use it to kill more people.

But let's first return to the Alan's story. His parent's learn that he is conspiring with Jim Cottonwood and banish Alan from home. So Alan decides to live permanently in Navaho house. But what is also important, Reverend Johnson in a fit of rage breaks a display of Alan's computer. And in that way Alan collect's some Reverend's blood. And he sends this blood to a DNA test instead of Jim's. And so he learns that Reverend is his actual father. But they also test Jim's blood somehow. So the truth is known about Alan's origin. And Jim's lawyer declares that there is some advancements in his case. So Judy tries to escape the state as she is afraid that she can be charged by a perjury now. But she meets Diana first. And Diana turns her into a cat. Then she gives that cat to Kelly, and the cat gets a new name "Ginger". Eventually, Ginger escapes from Cellog's farm and goes to a native American warlock and a serial killer Marley Two Moons and asks him to kill Diana. Apparently Marley can talk to humans transformed to animals because he is a warlock. Marley Two Moons removes Ginger's coral "setting her free" and wears it as a watch. After Judy's disappearances reverend Johnson commits a suicide, but he reincarnates as spider-ghost. And as a spider Ghost he is committed to haunting and killing Alan.

So, what happens next: Diana Turney makes Alan Johnson/Cottonwood to build a sty on the Cellog's farm. Then Diana starts hunting men, calling them "male chauvinist pigs" she transforms them into literal pigs, and imprison them in the sty. Her first victim is Carl Cellog, who is christened "Hamlet" as a pig. Then there are three more pigs in the sty, all named after character's from the play "Hamlet". Kelly is made to feed the pigs, and she hate to do so. And the pigs in the sty fight a lot with each other, so Diana castrate's them with the Help of Alan and a veterinary. These sty is a metaphor for a prison Carl was working in. But now he is a prisoner.

Allan and Diana have a love relation and eventually get married. But they don't have sex, as Allan is impotent with Diana. So, Allan stays a virgin and Diana can't turn him into a pig for this reason. Diana expect Allan to inherit reverend's house and church. But she finds reverend's will, which names Jim Cottonwood as his sole heir. Also the Judy's body is discovered on a landfill. As a cat she got into a car engine and got mutilated. And then her cat's body were thrown to a landfill. But somehow after that Diana's magic was snapped somehow and the mutilated cat's corpse turned into a mutilated woman's corpse. Police suspect's Alan as a murderer but they don't have any evidences against him. So Diana decides to use the reverend's will and Judy's bag to frame him. But Loise Cottonwood finds these items first and saves Alan. Judy's body being reverted to its human form also makes Diana question her magical power.

Also, Diana meets Marley Two Moons in a native American casino. And Marley recognises her as women cat told him about. Marley also sees Diana's fursona to be a snake and recognizes her as a witch. Diana invites Marley for one night stand. She plans also to turn him into a hog. But she discovers that her power don't work on him, because Marley is a powerful warlock. Marley firstly tries to strangle Diana, but then he instead forces her to pledge him loyalty and the he rapes her. So, also Marley magically dominates Diana and makes her his servant.

On the day of Janet's release from prison. Marley and his friends slaughter the pigs from the sty. But before that Kelly releases Hamlet from sty and so Hamlet (or Carl) escapes. Alan and Kelly goes to the prison to pick up Janet. But Kelly get's lost in the prison (in fact she is just sleeping in their car). So, they use it as excuse to make a detour and visit Lewis Sinclair's grave and museum in Sauk Centre, Stearns Count. there Alan and Janet have sex in one of the motels. But after janet's return tensions on the farm escalates. Marley kidnaps Alan and imprisons him at his home's basement and tries to starve him to death. Diana tries to transform Janet into a pig. But something goes wrong and she transforms into a monster creature with a body of the pig and the head of the woman. Diana imprisons the monster into her room and keeps it on a diet of corn and whisky.

Carl as Hamlet the pig finds the body of Marley Two Moons while he is outside, doing "crow riding". Then Hamlet eats Marley killing him and also somehow becoming vey smart for the pig. After that Hamlet ravages Marley's house trying to get some food from the fridge. Eventually he discovers Alan. His head is covered with the web of ghost spider and Alan lost his ability to see. But carl eats the ghost spider and clears the web from his eyes. Then Carl as a pig feeds starved Alan Ice cream and frozen pizzas from the freezer. This scene is surreal. After this Kelly calls the shack and tells Alan and Carl about the troubles home. Diana overhears the call and travels to the Marley's shack. While going there she is stopped by a traffic cope. And she turns the traffic cope into the pig. Finally after reaching Marley's house Diana releases Alan and tries to shot Hamlet. But Hamlet just leads her to Marley Two Moons' body. So Diana is now free of his evil influence. She tries to transform Alan into a pig but he denies her mandrake tea. Eventually Diana drives Alan to Navaho House. And her goes there to bathtub to tidy himself.

In the final of the story we learn that Carl and Janet are back to human form, but Carl will be castrated for the rest of his live. Jim Cottonwood is released and got the inheritance from the reverend Johnson. Alan decides to go to seminary and get education as a priest. And Kelly now is a honorable member of Jim's and Gordon's tribe. Also Kelly decides to become a teacher. Diana reincarnates as a snake, but then she meets a traffic cop as a hog. And they kill each other again. The end.

People often dislike this novel because they want to see Diana Turney as a hero, while she is in fact a villain. But what I think actually justifies her being a villain is that she is falls from grace even in her own morale system. Her path of infamy starts with her returning to eating meat as a vegan in twin cities. From that she eventually goes organizing a sty, and slaughtering and eating her pigs. But these pigs are actually humans. So in some sense she degrades to a total cannibalism. These should be a capital sin for vegans. She also fails as a feminist. in several points in the book she relies on men to complete hard task on her farm like building a sty, castrating and slaughtering the pigs. In the Finale she is lamenting the society totally came to dismay "if the woman has to use shotgun herself to kill people". So in some sense he path to villainy stems not from she being condemned as witch by mainstream American Christian standards. But by her failure of being a "good witch" in her own morale system.

Another important topic in this novel is abuse. Starting with the topic of Ritual Satanic Sexual Child Abuse in the school. Picked by the abuse of Diana by her own father Wes. This abuse is mirrored both by Reverend Jonson abusing his daughter Judy Jonson and Marley Two Moons abusing Diana latter in the book. Finally this abuse is reflected on the institutional level in the prison, where Carl works and where Jim Cottonwood is imprisoned for false accusations. Finally, this abuse is reflected as the abuse of pigs in the sty, who are castrated and eaten. After events of the Novel, Alan who can be named a true hero of the story decides to became vegan himself. So veganism and animal rights are one thing that are proposed in this book to break the cycle of abuse.

I also like how Disch incorporated furry fetishes into this story, the transformation fetish in particular. The animal transformations are described in details and are often connected with sex. Also Gordon Pillager tells a story of him getting into the wolf's body and having sex with a she-wolf. I think here Disch shows a deep understanding of supernatural and ur-cultural roots of furry subculture.

Despite it being a good read, I'm still not ready to call this book a masterpiece. There are certain problems with the plot. As I believe the blood batch, which Alan sends to DNA testing does not contain the blood of Judy, I doubt that DNA test's can prove that reverend Johnson is Alan's father. Basically, it can only prove that he is Alan's close male relative. And we already know that, because Johnson is his grandfather. And even if it's proven that Jim isn't Alan's actual father and reverend is, it all still doesn't prove that Judy wasn't raped by Jim Cottonwood. So I don't understand why Johnson's so easily backed off after the DNA testing news. They could still insist on the rape of Judy even if everybody know that Alan is reverend's son. Also as every Supernatural Minnesota book "the sub" has rather week world-building, even though I think it has the strongest in the series, as we can see different supernatural character's interacting in this one. Basically it seems that Diana's death reverts her magic as Carl and Janet became humans after it and the pig meat in the smokehouse became humans' meat. But the traffic cop never became human (maybe because he is a cop) and he kills Diana as a snake. Maybe the spell is reverted when Diana is killed as a snake, And Cellogs became human after this slaughter. But these is unclear. And then I was reading I felt that the order of events was opposite. It defense of "the Sub" it can be said that the realistic plot and worldbuilding never were it primary goal, and it still works as a surreal tragedy. But overall it feels that Disch was already tired of writing genre fiction when was creating "the Sub".

Also, I need to note that there are very few likable characters in the book. Carl is a fat prison guard obsessed with sex. Janet has a terrible temper. Even Kelly is described as whinny. Alan seems to be a true hero of the story but for a large part of it he seems to be misguided and under influence of Diana. Maybe Jim Cottonwood and Gordon Pillager are the good guys. But they still are very strange characters. I'm not even sure if it's a bad thing. It just give a picture of the dark nihilistic world.

So, the main character of the novel is Father Patrick Bryce, the catholic priest. He was raised in kind of family of Irish alcoholics. But in fact his father is another priest Father Coogling who is also present in the novel. In the course of the novel his mother is suffering form the Alzheimer's syndrome is trying to tell about this fact to her sons, but she can't remember all the details. So their is also an absurd sidequest across this book about readers looking for the father's true father, and discovering that his father is also a father, but in the same sense as the original father is a father. But what is slightly more important is that Father Patrick Bryce has a twin brother Peter Bryce, who is a fat alcoholic atheist-sceptic. In fact Peter Bryce is a self-insert for Disch himself. This is interesting because the name "Thomas" means "twin" in Aramaic. Also, at some point in the novel Disch kills Peter Bryce, so in some symbolic way he kills himself, and in realty Disch committed a suicide. Peter Bryce produces a nice infodump on Philip k. Dick and Scientology in a relevant point of the story. But what was more important is that Patrick and Peter had gay sex already in high school. So Father Bryce is gay.

After studying theology in Rome Father Bryce went on teaching in a seminary in rural Minnesota. There he picked up a habit of having sex with gay students. After that he was transitioned as a parish priest of one of the churches already present in the previous novels. There he started listening confessions of younger boys telling him about their masturbation habits. Father Bryce found a special joy in seducing these boys. But the problem begun when he developed a long term relation with one of this boys, call him John Burger. Then his parents forbade him to visit the priest, John Burger psyched out and set his house on fire. After that John Burger was sent to a psychologist, where he blew up about his relations with father Bryce. The Church covered father Bryce's ass but he was A) send to a special retreat for pedophile-priests B) transferred to a conservative parish of Sant Bernice C) Forced to lead a conservative anti-gay, anti-abortion propaganda campaign and manage an underground anti-abortion prison complex slash clinic. The retreat which was supposed to help father Bryce manage his habit just helped him to connect with other pedophile priests and learn the pro-tips from them. For example he learned there that he is not a pedophile but an ephebophile. Bu not only that. He learned that he can pick up boys in the "Fun-Fun-Fun" arcade. There Father Bryce meets Lance, a young run-away, a black-metal fan, and a gay-whore. Father Bryce gets a habit of paying Lance for sex and shoots sex-videos with him. At some point he even took him to his church and got sex with him at the altar, and came onto the communion bread. But when father Bryce told Lance that he hadn't got kicks from the profanity of it all, Lance suggested that they should drop LSD next time when they have sex in the church. And they did it, but while tripping father Bryce suddenly felt loathing toward Lance, and chose not to engage sexually with him. Instead of having sex under LSD they just ate some ice cream. Lance somehow was offended by that and stole an expensive crucifix and some sex videos with himself and father Brice on them. Some time passes by and eventually father Bryce got himself hooked up with Clay. And eventually it turned out that Clay is something like Lance's older brother. And Clay told the priest that Lance committed suicide and he knows everything about their relations because he got the crucifix and the sex-tapes. Clay starts blackmailing father Bryce. But the catch was that Clay didn't want money. Clay was somehow related to a "Receptivists' church", which is a bizarre hybrid of a Scientology and an UFO cult, founded by a well known sci-fi writer, Gene Boscovich (wrong name but I forgot the original name). The members of Receptivists' church use regressive hypnosis to recall their past lives and alien abduction episodes. And Receptivists believe to be a constant target of a conspiracy led by an alien race of Alpharians. Clay forces Father Bryce to study the "Receptivists' bible", the book "Prolegomenons" (which means prologue) by Gene Boscovich. There are also constant references to Philip K. Dick's "Exegeses" through out it. After that Clay forced Father Bryce to go to the Tattoo Parlor and a make a tattoo of a giant Devil's head with a Viking rider and some piles of skulls on his chest. The Tattoo artist there was an old biker named "Wolf". Wolf tells father Bryce his theory that a tattoo art can ride a person the same way as a rider rides a horse. He tells that he himself was a boring office clerk until he got himself a wolf tattoo which made him abandon his family and the job and became a biker and a devil worshipper. Interestingly, Thomas Disch himself got tattoos. And one of the Wolf's stories about making tattoo's seems to describe Disch's own experience of getting these tattoos.

But the most interesting thing is that while receiving this tattoo the priest's mind is "transmentated" in the medieval France in the time of Albigensian wars in the body of Bishop Sylvanus. And the Sylvanus mind is transmentated into the body of father Bryce. It all must be related to the receptionist science practices. First time this effect is temporal but the second time it seems permanent. In between of this two phenomena, Father Bryce is harassed by Bing Anker (the gay character from "The Businessman" novel), who wants Father Bryce to publicly repent for his crimes of seducing altar boys. Firs Bing visits church in drag and encounters Father Bryce in the confession boot. Second time he calls him by a phone. Bing saw father Bryce taking on TV bashing gays from conservative catholic standpoint and he is enraged by the hypocrisy as Bing himself was molested by father Bryce as an altar boy. At this point their dialog is eavesdropped by Father Mabbley, a good gay priest from Las Vegas and Bing's lover and, as it is implied later by Father Cogling. Father Bryce also tells Clay about his problem with Bing. So clay decides to go and hit Bing while the father Bryce is getting his Tattoo. Clay enters Bing's house but discovers only Bing's corpse. As it implied latter father Cogling send his henchman Gerhard Ober, an ultra-conservative nazi catholic , to kill Bing in order to protect the church. It turns out that Gerhard Ober also killed Father Bryce's mother and brother, because his mother finally recalled that father Cogling is a true father of her children. This is basically what I call the first part of this novel.

the second half of the romance can be said to begin there the Bishop Sylvanus and Father Bryce exchange mind. The Bishop Sylvanus finding himself in the modern Tattoo parlor at first decides that he is in hell. So he decides that "when in Rome do as romans" and decides to become a priest of Satan. He also meets a metalhead tattooed Delilah in the Tattoo parlor and becomes her lover, because unlike father Bryce he is heterosexual. At first he considers Delilah to be a succubus. But she also resembles a countess who he was watching to had her tits cut off by the inquisitors before being transmitted into the 20th century. For some time bishop Sylvanus lives in with Delilah’ and learns about the 20th century by watching TV and reading some bad books. Personally I find this segment of the novel very funny: "For a while he had suspected that the illuminated figures that appeared upon the dark glass of Delilah’s Trinitron might be demons, but having pondered them for many hours, he now believed that though they were very often grotesque, indecent, and unnatural, they were not actually alive, but only simulacra, the work of cunning artificers, like the image of the Beast that John writes of, that was given breath and the power of speech, so that all men would worship it. The Trinitron (the very name a mockery of the Triune God) revealed not a single beast but a whole menagerie of unclean spirits: some lustful, like the voluptuous Astrud Gilberto or the preening incubus Marky Mark; some warlike, like Popeye the Sailor Man or the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles; some wooing evil like a bride, like the two Moors, Geraldo and Oprah; and still others, kindlier, nameless beings, who appeared in intervals as brief as flashes of lightning to promise relief from various forms of suffering—headaches, stomach upset, hemorrhoidal distress. All of these creatures were illusory, all of them. They seemed to live when one manipulated the Trinitron a certain way; with another motion they ceased to exist. Silvanus found it difficult, now that Delilah was dead and no longer a spur to his lust, to do anything but marvel at these shadowy allegories and try to decipher them.". He also learns about nuclear weapon and firearms but can't distinguish between them, which is also very funny. But at some point he kill's Delilah during sex. After that he cuts off her breasts hopping that that will transmentate him back to his time but all is in vain. So, bishop Sylvanus proceeds to live in a trailer with a corpse of Delilah which he also fucks routinely when he don't watch TV. At this point Clay finds him and takes him to the church. In the church father Cogling send him to the underground prison complex in fact not to have it managed but to hide father Bryce during a possible murder investigation. The underground prison complex is inside a huge shrine that was in build in some forest in the eve of cold war by the same architect who build the Hitler's bunker. So the building at the same time is a catholic cathedral, a nazi bunker and a post-nuclear vault. There are five girls were kept where when father Bryce still wasn't present there. But one of them is already dead from miscariag. Another girl is only 12 years old and was knocked up by her father. Some well-behaved girls are allowed a relative freedom of existence, while not so well behaved are constantly bound to their beds and have their mouths taped. There is a chilling scene how the birthday of the worst behaving girl, Raven Peck, is celebrated. How other girls eat her birthday cake and blow the candles while she is with them but bound to her bed and with her mouth taped. When bishop Sylvanus arrives in this complex he begins to rape these girls while pretending to handle their confessions. During one of such attempts bishop Sylvanus kills Raven Peck. But this is not the whole story. The complex is a home for a few threads from the shroud of Turin and two of the girls trick father Sylvanus and the sister of Gerhard Ober to go with them to the reliquarium and close father Sylvanus and the sister of Gerhard Ober inside. This leads to the complex being taken over by the bats. Two Girls attempt the escape and have to face Gerhard Ober's guard German shepherd dogs, but they have a mace spray with them for fighting them. They are stopped by a tall fence in the boundaries of the complex. But where they meet Father Mabley and Greg, a Fiancée of one of the captured pregnant girls, Alyson. They try to help Alyson climb over the fence, wile another girl Mary is savaged by a guard dog. But then father Cogling and Gerhard Ober arrive and capture all the characters taking them to shrine which was swarmed by bats. There is a final showdown during which father Cogling and Gerhard Ober are killed. But Father Mabbley goes to the reliquarium to confess father Bryce/ bishop Sylvanus. The sinful priest tell to father Mabley that he was under the control of the devil and tries to show him his tattoo. But before the gates of reliquarium are closed again father Mabley sees that father Bryce has no Tattoo!

But there is also father Bryce's side of story. He discovers himself in body of bishop Sylvanus in the castle of Montpelier-la-viex in the XIII century France. The image of medieval age painted by Disch is extremely dark. Even bishops and dukes of that era are far more miserable and vulnerable compared to modern working men. And peasants and craftsmen are described as starved slave laborers. Father Bryce suffers a lot in that world, but eventually he discovers in the castle of Montpelier-la-viex the group of masons imprisoned by the inquisition. These Lombardian masons have build the cathedral of Montpelier-la-viex and their leader Bonamico (which probably means "good friend") is the sci fi writer Gene Boskowich himself, also transmentated. Only he and father Bryce can talk modern English. So father Bryce demands a participation in the interrogation session of Bonamico/Boskowich. Father Bryce tries to learn from him how he can transmentate back. But Bonamico/Boskowich knows nothing because this Boskowich from the time before he invented the "Receptivism". But during one of the torture sessions Boskowich claims that they and bishop Sylvanus were talking the language of Egypt and that Sylvanus is a hidden priest of Amon-Ra. So, Sylvanus himself get's under the pressure of the inquisition. The inquisition's torturer's name is Crispo and I forget the name of the inquisitor, but he is a legate of Rome, and he is called just legate often. During one of the torture sessions it turns out that legate also can speak modern English and he is a man transmentated from the future. He crucifies father Bruce to make a Shroud of Turin out of him. Allegedly he does it in order to set a grand conspiracy against the church, because father Bryce can became a greatest shame for eat.

Oh, basically I hate the ending of this novel. Probably as an atheist-sceptic Disch wanted to give materialistic explanations to all the troubles. So in the end we see that the surviving girls all settled and well of right now. Father Mabbley, who left his position as priest, received Bing's money and houses and he lets girls and their families live there and they also got a five million $ settlement from the church. Father Mabbley explains that father Bryce got all this black outs due to alcohol abuse. And he also got kind of triple personality splitting disorder and both Clay and boshop Sylvanus were his alternative personalities. So all the tattoo scene and scenes with Delilah were just hallucinations and the first real murder on his behalf were Raven Peck. I personally felt that this sort of makes some of strongest scenes in this novel/romance devoid of the meaning. Maybe I'm just to harsh and this just requires them to be put in a more psychological perspective. All this makes a story feel a lot like David Lynch's "Lost Highway". But there is also a different ending there Father Bryce's "Clay" personality discovers himself in the prison. Then he is introduced to a new cellmate, Donald Crispo. Donald Crispo claims to be a serial killer with psychic powers, which he used to find his victims. And he claims that he now sees the devil tattoo on the Clay's chest. Then "Clay" decides that he was set up by Gene Boskowich who transmentated his mind into Clay's younger body, while sending Clay's mind into an imprisoned body of father Bryce. This allows a more shocking interpretation that all this story was a Receptivist's operation planned by Boskowich, but there are still too many contradiction. Because this interpretation still doesn't explain how the disappearing tattoo works.

Personally I have a very complicated opinion about this novel. At some level I really enjoyed the novel and many it's scenes and ideas. As I said above there are lots to chew on here, which is admirable. I still feel that Disch supports the materialistic explanation. He explicitly states in the novel that Montpelier-la-viex is a geological formation and not a castle. So the place from father Bryce's visions never existed. Bu father Mabbley in his explanation misses a point that in this case father Bryce got not even three but at least seven sub-personalities including Delilah, Wolf, Crispo and Legate. And we don't need any additional books about "The Minds of Billy Milligan". What I really dislike here is that it feels like there a lot of lost opportunities here. I personally would prefer if Disch wrote more about Reteptivists, or about Cathars in general, or how bishop Sivanus hangs out with a satanic cult. For example. where could be a cult plotline if it turned out that Gene Boskovich in a modern is actually Bonamico, who was a secret Cathar priest. And Receptivists are actually secretly recreated Cathars who are trying to destroy catholic church in spite. Or just having more Receptivists characters and their thoughts in the novel would be interesting. Because, as Recptivists seem to be based on Scientology, it would be interesting to view their church that existed only for decades as some sort of miniature model of catholic church which existed almost for two thousand years. Overall, it's very jarring to see a good novel which fails to be great.

About the novel's genre. I don't accept it as a horror proper. As I already said the first half of the novel with it's multiple storyline's feels a lot like a movie by Coen brothers. So it feels more like a black comedy. I think Disch attempts horror in the scenes inside the underground prison complex. There you have underage pregnant girls, who was already abused, locked in a literal Nazi bunker with a pedophile priest possessed by a medieval bishop who wants to rape them and a frozen corpse of the said priest's brother. This is horrible, but then too much horrible things happen with the same people, it actually feel like comedy, a dark comedy. But why Disch insists that this story is a "gothic romance". By Disch's own words the gothic romance is "a book about a stupid girl who is stupid enough to put herself in danger, but not stupid enough to get herself, and in the final gets a nice affluent life". This is exactly a description of the Alyson, one of the girls ins the complex, is exactly. Basically, he gets locked there by her own will, nobody kidnaps her, but as a result of her actions she is put to grave danger. And in the final of the story she is rich with her hatband and her daughter. This is exactly Disch's own formula of a gothic novel. The image of the shrine complex "cathedral" full the bats is also quite gothic. I was expecting father Bryce to leave the reliquarium, which was build as kind of sepulcher, in this bat infested space shirtless, flashing his devil tattoo to the world. This would be an ultimate gothic priest. And this is another reason why the absence of tattoo was so jarring. So in a certain way this is a gothic romance. And this is not a novel in a strict sense. On a certain level there are no character development in this book. In some point in the story it seems the father Bryce locked in the medieval world develops a personality of a proper priest or even of a martyr. But in the end it is also a hallucinations and all the character development is undone. Nevertheless it's very interesting that "The Priest" is a romance, which creates an illusion of the novel inside it. Which is very interesting. In some way it was written in the same time a Disch's non-fiction work "the dreams our stuff is made of", where Disch develops his theory of "genre literature". So the "Priest" feels almost as a companion book.

Regarding the main topic of this romance. This is *the faith* in some way. But the faith was also the main topic in "M. D."; But "M. D." was about the power of faith. And "The Priest" is about the cults, faith organizations, protecting themselves and their faith. In this gothic romance we can see catholic church protecting themselves in two different points of history, we see Cathars protecting their faith, and receptivists doing the same. I thing this is also a reason the the whole experience of father Bryce being a hallucination is important. During this experience he creates a large conspiracy against the church that involve receptivists, some satanic bikers and even some mysterious time-travelers. But in the end in turns out the biggest threat is himself, a corrupt priest. That can be said about other religious figures who invent conspiracies to protect their church. For example, Boskovich invents Alpharian aliens. I think this is a main point of the story.

On a deeper level, we can note that father Bryce is a dark twin of the author himself. So this romance can be read as a study of Disch's own demons on some deep psychological level. As the analysis of materialistic interpretation suggests father Bryce's mind itself is "a whole menagerie of unclean spirits" which includes not only a woman-haunting "bishop Sylvanus" and the hitman-taskmaster "Clay", but also a biker Wolf, a torturer-serial killer Crispo, and an ominous Legate. In one of the final chapters Boskovich himself says that he don't know from where are alpharians come from: "from an outer space of the cosmos or an inner space of the mind". Probably all this entities are some interior demons that Disch wanted to expunge. Maybe as Catholic church exorcises demons. Or as the church of Scienotology clears thetans. But I'm still not sure if such a work can be accomplished without any character development on a page of a gothic romance?

But "the priest" (1994) is still a fascinating read. This novel is adjacent to "The Dreams our stuff is maid of" (1998), where Disch develops his theory of genre fiction. And "the gothic romance" is one of genres he examines. As I understand it in a novel character should go through some character development arcs. But in a romance all characters are like puppets in a puppet show, they are designed to play certain role. They always enter the stage with this role and always leave the stage with this role. For example. father Bryce is a puppet of an evil priest in the gothic romance, or in a catholic church horror show. A very realistic puppet, but stull a puppet. But one day, the puppet gets a dream where it goes finally through a character development. But in the end of a day this is just a dream and nothing new had happened.