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Confessions of a Teenage Jesus Jerk
(Soft Skull Press, Feb. 2010)

"Addictive, informative, heartbreaking and utterly satisfying."
-Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander and Paint It Black

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A dark coming-of-age comedy that goes behind closed doors into the rarely-glimpsed world of Jehovah's Witnesses.

Gabe is a teenage Jehovah's Witness convinced God is going to kill him at Armageddon for masturbating.

But Gabe's not alone: There's his best friend Peter, who writes obscenities in the margins of his Watchtower; Jin, the Korean kid in the congregation, who subsists on Ho Hos and Doritos; and Camille, who follows Gabe around, trying to be his girlfriend. When he falls in love with Jasmine, Camille's beautiful older sister, things only get more complicated.

Meanwhile, the adult world around him seems to be going from mildly absurd to full-blown dysfunctional. His dad is an elder in the congregation who decides the fate of sinners (like the married couple who confess to accidentally having anal sex), while his mother waits for happiness on the other side of Armaggedon.

Fearing eternal damnation and caught in the only belief system he has ever known, it is up to Gabe to find a path to romance, love, sanity, and something like happiness.