What do reality TV game show contestants,
religious fanatics, true believers, atheists, zombies, quarreling siblings, an
FBI agent, Elvis impersonator, and an almost-fired English professor at a
Christian college have in common?
They all come together to interlock as
essential players in Thomas Allbaugh’s tightly wound, often hilarious, debut
novel, APOCALYPSE TV.
Shakespeare today might muse that “All the world’s
a reality TV game show, and all the men and women merely players in their quest
for prizes amid layers of illusions and media hype.” It is upon this slippery
platform that Allbaugh has built a metaphor for our contentious world as viewed
through the lenses of good vs. evil, secular religion vs. spirituality, and
love vs. indifference.
The story kicks off when Christian intellectual,
Walter Terry, takes a leave of absence from his conservative college in
California to visit his dying father in Michigan. Walter has just been put on
notice for allowing students to express non-conservative viewpoints, and fears
his job is on thin ice.
Walter and his sister are approached in a
Midwestern diner by a talent scout for a new reality TV show that claims to be
“an investigation into American religious ideas.” He describes himself to the
pretty interviewer as an “outsider in terms of religion,” but sees her write
down “soft and vulnerable.” This pigeon-holing is exactly what makes these
shows maddening, but also makes them fun for the fans.
Seduced by the promise of money and his own
rationalization that perhaps a show like this could use an educated analytical
thinker, Walter embarks on what will turn out to be a character-building
odyssey. After he is entrenched in “Race for the Apocalypse,” Walter hears the
producer refer to him as the show’s “sacrificial lamb.” And after that…all bets
are off.
