501 Minutes to Christ: Personal Essays - Softcover

Ballantine, Poe

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0976631199 ISBN 13: 9780976631194

Publisher: Hawthorne Books, 2007

Synopsis

Poe Ballantine’s second collection of personal essays follows, and expands on, his acclaimed Things I Like About America. Ballantine’s world is a crazy quilt of odd jobs, eccentric characters, boarding houses, buses, and beer, rendered in the author’s by turns absurd and poignant voice. The Irving” briskly details the author’s diabolic plan to punch John Irving in the nose after opening for him before an audience of 2,000 people at the prestigious Wordstock Festival. Wide-Eyed in the Gaudy Shop” takes readers on a wild ride through Mexico as Ballantine meets and marries his wife Christina. Blessed Meadows for Minor Poets” offers a devastating take on the author’s life as his years of struggle to secure a major contract for a short story collection end in catastrophe. The writer the Seattle Times called part Huck Finn, part Hunter S. Thompson” brings a blistering wit and shrewd observation to this composite portrait of an unconventional life.

About this title

About the Author:

Poe Ballantine currently lives in Chadron, Nebraska. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, The Sun, Kenyon Review, and The Coal City Review. In addition to garnering numerous Pushcart and O. Henry nominations, Mr. Ballantine’s work has been included in the anthologies The Best American Short Stories 1998 and The Best American Essays 2006.

Review:

Name five books and/or authors we all need to read?

I would submit that it’s almost impossible to really understand the full scope of human existence without having read Joseph Campbell’s Hero With a Thousand Faces. The prologue alone is enough to open one’s eyes with an ecstatic bang. After that, I’d recommend Food of the Gods by Terence McKenna, Homo Ludens (it has nothing to do with gay cough drops) by Johan Huizinga, Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow and Poe Ballantine’s exquisitely funky 501 Minutes to Christ. Modesty forbids me (remember ego reduction?) from listing my own Skinny Legs And All.

TOM ROBBINS Author of Jitterbug Perfume

Ballantine is never far from the trenches ... the essays are readable and entertaining and contain occasional moments of startling beauty and insight. Still, the themes of addiction (to substances, people, new starts, the prospect of fame), dissatisfaction, and nihilism may limit the work’s appeal; as with writers such as Chuck Palahniuk, some will become rabid devotees, while others will be turned off.

LIBRARY JOURNAL

These authors have no idea what a pain in the ass it is filing titles that begin with numbers.

MATT PLIES, ANNIE BLOOM'S BOOKS

Ravishing work, my son. Voluptuously heartbreaking.

THOMAS AQUINAS

Anyplace around here I might wash my hands?

PONTIUS PILATE

How about 501 Minutes to Lunch?

BARABBAS

By grace, through faith, they offed my head in ’65, but I’m still here as you see, a Pharisee, a tortured wanderer, like this man Ballantine, by grace through faith, as to all those who wait, and shirk not the light of truth.

ST. PAUL THE APOSTLE

My soul yearns to know this most entangled enigma. I confess to Thee, O Lord, that I really have no idea what Poe Ballantine is talking about.

ST. AUGUSTINE Author of The Confessions of St. Augustine

Okay, so I edited the Bible as you know it, and I was a pagan emperor and all that, but when my Franks and I marched outnumbered under the Christian standard and whipped those Goth mercenaries all the way to the Hellespont, Rome saw another glorious millennium. In hoc signo vinces. Remember also: Istanbul was Constantinople. Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople. Been a long time gone, Constantinople. Now it’s Turkish delight on a moonlit night.

CONSTANTINE THE GREAT

Hey, that guy stole our song.

THE FOUR LADS

Shameless manipulation of Christian Iconography worked for me, and I’m not even a real blonde!

MADONNA

They weren’t talking to you, my dear.

MADONNA

Oh, you bore me, you’re all so boring.

SATAN

Excellent. Ballantine does his best to live an authentic life—the fact that he comes up short, every time, does nothing to make his search any less affecting.

MARY MILLER, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

About this edition

• Publisher: Hawthorne Books
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0976631199
• ISBN 13: 9780976631194
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240