Negotiations with God - Book Review

Negotiations with God by R.W. Sowrider and John Box is an irreverent story of a man named Rowen who finds himself faced with the task of trying to get his life right so he can finally be accepted into Empyrean, the ultimate destination for the dead.  The novel opens with Rowen being chastised by the booming voice of Delemor, a God-like reptile creature that resembles a science fiction alien.  Rowen wants to earn entrance into Empyrean and hopefully join the love of his life, Sera.

Sowrider masterfully depicts humanity with all of its warts, imperfections, and vulgarity as he relates Rowen’s travels through multiple lifetimes living under different religions and worshipping various gods.  His sharp pen and wild imagination depicts humanity in some of its bleakest moments in the history of the world.  He creates vignettes of Rowen’s various reincarnations from participating in the crusades, living under Mazuma and his thirst for child sacrifices, being a eunuch, and being a male prostitute. The book is full of scathing satire from cover to cover. R.W. Sowrider offers an extraordinary reading experience … bound to keep you turning pages to the very end of his comedic masterpiece.

His wit, sharp pen, and wondrous imagination depict bizarre scenes in his warped world that readers would never conjure up without his graphic descriptions. He has his protagonist squatting in a communal latrine next to an associate while both are busy defecating and happily chatting away.  The story is filled with satire, darkness, and embarks on many different aspects of life and human behavior. It is undoubtedly a book that has no issues probing and lampooning what lies beneath the pious veneer of religions and philosophies. Sowrider appears to convey his own honest inimitable and unique perspective on life and the human condition in this book about the afterlife and redemption.

The novel also cleverly includes Rowen as an author in one of his incarnations who writes a book about being a male gigolo in Japan, which happens to be a real book written by the author of this book, which is as irreverent as Negotiations with God.

Sowrider fleshes out a parade of gods and historical beings as he narrates Rowen’s journeys through his numerous reincarnations and visits to the afterlife.  As bizarre as many of the situations appear, you will find the majority of them are very real but told in a modern-day perspective that points out how strange man’s beliefs have been and are still.  Negotiations with God is a delightful, quirky, and whimsical in its creative, complex inspection of the evolution of dogmas, religions, and views.

If you like outrageously humorous takes on history, you will find Negotiations with God just the answer.