Apocalypse Omnibus

Auteur
Adam Parfrey was a
writer and publisher whose work earned praise as provocative and groundbreaking
from the New York Times and fearful derision from religious scaremongers. He is
the author of numerous books and editor of many more. Parfrey’s sudden death in
May of 2018 deprived readers of his thoughts on the current state of affairs,
yet the impact he made and the voices he empowered through his publishing
company, Feral House, remain.

Texte du rabat

The Apocalypse Omnibus collects the best of Adam Parfrey’s essays in a single volume. 
 Adam Parfrey was, before starting iconoclastic publisher Feral House, a writer. His foresight in revealing extreme trends and societal angst long before mainstream media had any inkling of the darkness bubbling just under the surface of American culture earned him praise and derision.  Apocalypse Culture (1987) was hailed by J.G. Ballard as the “terminal documents of the Twentieth Century.” 
 Many of the included essays are eerily prescient as Parfrey warned about right-wing militias in the early nineties and documented the rise of conspiracy-dominated thinking decades before Republican government officials loudly declared political opponents were satanically inspired drinkers of baby blood. Yet Parfrey’s interests were wide-ranging and Apocalypse Omnibus includes profiles of outré characters, artists, and, yes, some crackpots. Parfrey loved tweaking American mythology by resurrecting lost texts highlighting outlaws and outsiders. He continually sought to expose the absurdity of American culture. His collective writings have become the ur-texts of the "Dirtbag Left." 
 "Parfrey was fascinated by the contrast between America portrayed as wholesome freedom-loving peacekeepers and the reality of covert military operations, mass-drug experiments, and the obscured “wizards” hidden behind the curtain pulling the levers of power. His work has been lauded as groundbreaking and criticized as dangerous. In a time when truth has been stretched to the breaking point, Parfrey’s essays remind readers that there is always more to the story. 
 Apocalypse Omnibus also contains material previously published in the out-of-print books, Apocalypse Culture 2 (2003) and Cult Rapture (1995), as well as new material culled from his extensive private archives. It also contains a selection of Parfrey’s essays and investigations, originally published in the San Diego Reader, Village Voice, Hustler Magazine, and on his own site, and inaccessible for years, are collected here in a single volume. Black and white images with full-color art by Joe Coleman.

Échantillon de lecture
No vaunted End seems to be coming any time soon. No resolution, no termination, no third act, none of it.

Apocalypse is crack--belief systems puffed on and puffed on until the smoker withers under a huge cloud of phantasms. Though we have no bananas, we do have apocalypse culture, an epoch so confused, so mutated, so . . . perfect. Perfectly sad, perfectly degraded, perfectly corrupt. 

Though this book trespasses the Forbidden Zone, the land of moral quandary, no easy answers are provided here. Readers are urged to contemplate the strange and often contradictory information within and make up their own minds regarding value. We refuse to take part in the charade screaming at you from television or from social media attaching cretinous moral context to photos of Nazis and raped children.

Due to the many tender, reactive subjects within, I feel the need to make it clear that the book was compiled to examine far-reaching and extreme societal tendrils and should not be seen as a manifesto or a smorgasbord of personal fetishes or beliefs. The editor (Adam Parfrey) does not endorse the views exposed within, much less the hobby horses ridden by the subjects, whether they are ignorant, hateful, or enlightening. Paying no attention to the material presented here does not eradicate its existence.

Call it evil, call it prescient--the apocalypse culture has only just begun.

Adam Parfrey, May 2000