Malchus, historically the first Roman to convert to Christianity, and
the last to receive physical healing from Christ before his crucifixion,
is born again in the 21st century. What will follow from this
""re-birth,"" in a time where there is no absolute right or wrong, no
morality or immorality? What ensues as true crime in a world full of
police sirens? Malchus is explored through the first-person style of
traditional confessional writing. The book's title Malchus refers to the
servant of the Jewish High Priest Caiaphas who participated in the
arrest of Jesus yet later converted to Christianity. The constructed
distinction between Roman attitudes and Christian attitudes is decisive
in this book. The entire book spans the day of a paranoid and sensitive
man who claims to himself that he is guilty of some ""horrendous act of
evil."" As we follow this man we become acquainted with his attitudes
(despair, guilt, nihilism, idealism, individualism). We soon realize
that the man is in-fact proud and protective of this ""horrendous act of
evil."" Malchus has been heralded as ""the first truly existential work
of the 21st century"" and has been described as Proustian in detail and
description. ""The description and allegory reminded me of Marcel Proust
. . . Malchus keeps the reader in the sweet spot between exposition and
introspection. . . . Malchus is short and sharp, almost jarringly so.
And it's written in a heady blend of neurosis and hyper-lucidity.""
--Jill de Laat, Director, Melrose Books ""Almost musical in its
intensity and expressive force. Elusive, perplexing, meditative, a
travelogue of a restless mind."" --Petteri Pietikainen, author of
Madness: A History ""The first truly existential work of the
twenty-first century worth talking about."" --Benjamin Smith, editor of
Horror, Sleaze, Trash ""A fascinating work."" --Christopher
Hamilton-Emery, Salt Publishing; author of Radio Nostalgia ""Malchus
hits the reader like a punch to the gut--or better, like an electric
shock to the brain. A work of intense alienation. Dostoyevsky,
Nietzsche, and Camus updated for the twenty-first century."" --Steven
Shaviro, Wayne State University; author of Post-Cinematic Affect ""A
delightful narrative on the tragedy of the human condition. Johns'
beautiful exposition of Malchus is an analysis of the sublime nature of
the neurotic in a world of sirens and commotion. A triumph!"" --John
O'Donoghue, psychotherapist/psychoanalyst for Spirasi ""Johns offers a
compelling novella somewhat in the spirit of Blanchot's The Madness of
the Day."" --Anthony Richards, University of Lincoln, UK Charles William
Johns is a Research Assistant in The English & Journalism Department at
The University of Lincoln. He is author of both Incompatible Ballerina
and Other Essays (John Hunt, 2015) and Neurosis and Assimilation
(Springer, 2016). He is currently editing a collection of essays
entitled The Neurotic Turn with contributions from Graham Harman, Nick
Land, Benjamin Noys, and Patricia Reed, which will be published by
Repeater Books in 2017.
