The Secondhand Disciple

By Palmer Fitzgerald

The Secondhand Disciple is a literary novel in strains of soft sci-fi. It also ties in with the main character's theory of existence. The novel also has no agenda except to show how an aged individual can think while his shared theory is not one found elsewhere. Its eclipsing notoriety cannot be stressed enough. In the process, it depicts one who isn't anti-Semitic but treats it in bad taste and is homophobic and racist by twenty-first-century standards.

Zane is a glossophobe, fearing public speaking and developing an unorthodox, if original, view of the world, who tries to espouse it in spite of an introverted personality. As the son of a Mississippi clergyman, his persuasion is endorsed by two pastors--a Black Arizona Unitarian and a North Carolina Fundamentalist Baptist. These latter and a Virginia preacher attempt to bring this philosophy before the public. In the interim, there occurs a killing in self-defense, a presidential assassination, several murders, and a bank robbery.

Secondary to the thrust of the work but not in coverage is an exhaustive look at Carolina church services, outlining the druthers and interactions of these congregations. While there are diatribes aplenty, no doctrine is touted; the gist is that Copernicus was wrong in his heliocentrically if regarded in a multidimensional scope. The novel will not be fact-checked as it engages in these otherworldly anomalies. Churchy as it might seem, it is totally lacking in evangelism.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638609179