Books by Gordon Massman

For decades, a certain photograph-I don't know who took the picture-has been lodged in my mind of an ash-smeared, half-naked, crazed-looking man peering through a thicket of brambles in what might be called The Wilderness of No God. He looks tragically alone, bereft, cut loose from the comforting anchors of religious faith, and yet he seems surprisingly tranquil. In this collection, I have transcribed the poems-I think of them as songs-which I believe this man sings in the depths of his heart. Yes, his Mystical Faith Exploded in the Midst of a Cathedral, but after years of wandering, he has found joy, coherence, cohesion-his voice. I have titled this book God: A Handbook for the Disbeliever because I think of it as a comforting treasury of verses for all of us who travel this treacherous journey of life alone.

Gordon Massman's 0.174: The Complete Numbers Cycle is an intricate exposure of the self. In this 20 years' culmination of work, he has dared to make the invisible visible. Perhaps on some level a perverse project, 0.174 lays open in depth-confession, in laboratory precision Massman's innermost fantasies, obsessions, urges, and fears which might, he hopes, provide at least a splintered reflection into one's own humanity. In either case-whether private or universal-here opens an increasingly cathartic examination of Massman's particular psychology observed as acutely and honestly as he is capable. In so doing he has treated what mainstream society generally considers vulgar or unsavory, as valuable and often beautiful. It is his hope that some who attempt this book will agree that all human thought and feeling is worthy of song. Often satirical in tone, this book represents the nekyia, the down, inward going, of an epic tale that is life itself.