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Richard Barager
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The Atheist and the Parrotfish Kindle Edition

by Richard Barager (Author), Eric Pinder (Editor) Format: Kindle Edition
3.7 out of 5 stars 70
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A transplant patient possesses eerie knowledge of his organ donor’s most intimate secret. This could change everything.

  • WINNER: Pinnacle Book Achievement Award – Best Literary Fiction
  • RECOGNIZED: IndieReader’s Best Reviewed Books of 2017 – Literary Fiction
  • SILVER MEDAL: Independent Publisher Book Awards (IPPY) – Best Cover - Fiction
  • FINALIST: National Indie Excellence Awards – Contemporary Novel, General Fiction
  • FINALIST: Next Generation Indie Book Awards – Religious Fiction

Nephrologist Cullen Brodie’s disbelief in the afterlife is tested when a cross-dressing transplant patient exhibits behaviors and traits of his female organ donor—details about whom the patient inexplicably knows. The patient’s eerie knowledge of his donor’s greatest secret forces Cullen to consider the unimaginable: transmigration of a human soul.

EVOLVED PUBLISHING PRESENTS a fascinating glimpse into a world where medicine and religion/philosophy intersect, in a literary novel sure to fascinate, and quite possibly to entice you to examine your own beliefs.

Midwest Book Review: "As events spiral beyond [the characters'] control, readers are introduced to a questioning process that challenges them to consider the disparate paths of personal change and the possibilities of medical and religious realms intersecting in unusual ways. All these facets, especially the winding commentary on transgender identity and evidence of a soul, could easily have become confusing, especially when given an added shot of intrigue and the elements of a medical mystery; but under Barager's pen the logic of events and the evolution of personalities and new beliefs are impeccably drawn, and fascinating."

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  1. Print length
    338 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    20 May 2017
  5. File size
    2418 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
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  8. Enhanced typesetting
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Product description

About the Author

AUTHOR: By day I'm a nephrologist, treating dialysis patients and kidney transplant recipients. By night I write fiction. I believe the two finest callings in life are doctor and writer, one ministering to the human condition, the other illuminating it, and each capable of transforming it. I earned BA and MD degrees at the University of Minnesota and did my postgraduate training at Emory University in Atlanta and the University of California in San Diego. I live now in Orange County, CA. I am a champion of the healing power of literature, and sometimes prescribe novels or short stories to patients to help them cope with illness. Fiction explores meaning in a way science cannot. Sometimes only fiction tells the truth.

EDITOR: As an editor, I appreciate stories with pace and humor-and no dangling participles. Genres of particular interest include nature writing, creative nonfiction, speculative fiction, and books for children & young adults. I earned my MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts, and I teach at New Hampshire Institute of Art.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B06VY7PZ4Q
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Evolved Publishing LLC; 1st edition (20 May 2017)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 2418 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 338 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 out of 5 stars 70

About the author

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Richard Barager

Richard Barager

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By day, I'm a nephrologist, treating dialysis patients and kidney transplant recipients. By night, I write fiction. I believe the two finest callings in life are doctor and writer, one ministering to the human condition, the other illuminating it, each capable of transforming it.

I earned BA and MD degrees at the University of Minnesota and completed postgraduate training at Emory University in Atlanta and the University of California in San Diego. I live in Orange County, CA.

I am a champion of the healing power of literature. Fiction explores meaning in a way science cannot. Sometimes only fiction tells the truth.

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
3.7 out of 5
70 global ratings

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Top reviews from Australia

Bella
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
Reviewed in Australia on 18 March 2018
This is definitely the kind of story that will divide its readers; you'll love it or hate it. Clearly, I loved it. I found it incredibly thought-provoking, frustrating, and beautifully balanced on that line between exploring belief systems and preaching one over another. I tend to steer clear of religious debate/agendas in novels-this one was excellent. I also tend to find many books that have minority groups represented by one main character are overdone: I would hazard a guess that the trans community would not be offended or feel mis-represented by this one. I think the author has done a brilliant job weaving in his day-time profession in with a lot of thorough research. This is a very well written, artfully considered and brilliantly executed slight off-kilter story that had me entranced from the first chapter. I will say, the ending left me reeling! Not at all what I expected, and nicely done for catching me off guard!
2 people found this helpful
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Snapdragon
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting
Reviewed in Australia on 24 June 2018
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This book was written by a kidney specialist with a very large vocabulary. Isn’t it fortunate that we can tap on a word to find out what it means! The central story concerns a cross dressing 63 year old man who receives a heart/kidney transplant. He becomes convinced that he’s also received a part of his donor’s soul. He certainly seems to know things about her that he shouldn’t: her love of jazz and beetroot, for example. Naturally his shrink disagrees, preferring the explanation that he needs to come to terms with his female alter ego.

His nephrologist Cullen Brodie is the main protagonist though, and through him other themes are explored. A dedicated rationalist, Brodie is very anti-religion. His Catholic father was very opposed to abortion and when a young Cullen reveals that his girlfriend is the daughter of a well known abortionist Brodie senior slashes her painting, setting off a Greek tragedy of events that scar not only Cullen and girlfriend Angie but many others. Years later, with two divorces behind him, Cullen finds himself wishing that he had descendants, and sizing up his heart/kidney patient’s shrink as breeding material. However, when a painting from the Cook Islands arrives, he drops everything to go there and re-connect with its painter - Angie. Things go well till she drops a bombshell. Or two.

Life on the Edenic islands is well-described. The author must be one of those polymaths who collect all sorts of information like a sponge. Naturally, as a doctor himself, everything medical is also well-described. Back home in California a thorny problem of parentage that involves Cullen’s boss and his heart/kidney patient sees Cullen wrestling with the faith question and reversing his point of view. So the book is interesting intellectually and narratively, and the characters are well drawn. It’s well worth reading. I’m not convinced of Cullen’s conclusion though, and I think some of the obscure words could go.
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Top reviews from other countries

Annie56
4.0 out of 5 stars Very enjoyable
Reviewed in Canada on 12 May 2018
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Very interesting story told from different perspectives than the norm. Quite emotionally wrenching and very sympathetic characters. Reminds us we are all flawed in some way, and that life is an uphill struggle for each of us, for a variety of reasons.
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Chanticleer Book Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Merges age-old spiritual questions with the latest in modern medicine - a thought provoking top-of-the-line read. Riveting!
Reviewed in the United States on 3 June 2017
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Can the souls of the departed live on in their transplanted organs? Read Richard Barager's edgy novel, "The Atheist and the Parrotfish," and find out!

Dr. Cullen Brodie receives word that a donor is available for one of his patients, Ennis, a sixty-three-year-old cross-dresser desperately in need of a new heart and kidney. Cullen learns that the donor happens to be his boss's daughter-in-law, Carla, who never recovered from a car accident.

At his three-month follow-up appointment, Ennis declares that his donor came to him in a dream and that Carla's organs have exerted influences on him "beyond their intended bodily functions," such as unexplained sweating and flushing, chattiness, a love for jazz as well as beets.

The possibility of Carla’s transmigration (passage of a soul into a living body) sends chills through Cullen. How can this be?

The uncanny "spiritual" experiences in Ennis's life spark religious questions within Cullen's mind, particularly ones directed toward an unresolved conflict embedded in his past.

Ennis has some other issues, as well. But his (or more correctly, Carla's) take shape in an obsession with locating the donor’s family. When he does, however, that familial connection stirs up personality clashes between Ennis and Elaine (Ennis's feminine side), and Carla.

Amid the turmoil, Ennis is aware of Carla desperately trying to relay a critical life-changing message to her family, but he needs Cullen's help to deliver it. The real trick will be whether or not Ennis can convince Cullen before Carla destroys Ennis altogether.

Coming-out-of-the-closet late produces in Ennis a multitude of inner struggles and unsettling childhood memories. In the midst of his personal chaos, Ennis has amazing moments of clarity (with the help of Carla) to see through people and their faults.

Cullen, on the other hand, finds himself between a rock and a hard place dealing with Ennis's ongoing commentary about Carla. "When all else fails, listen to your patient" is Cullen's default motto to identify patients’ diagnoses. With Ennis however, Cullen finds this motto difficult to live by, especially since it is both extremely unusual and disconcerting for Cullen to even consider the possibility of life after death – or the very existence of a soul. As a result, Cullen's attempt to apply reason to an unreasonable situation leads him to revisit conflicts from his own past.

Contradiction is a key narrative theme in this work. One story coiled within another builds while Barager slowly and masterfully weaves the two seemingly opposing accounts together. Chapters alternate between characters dealing with past and present situations, and scenes that include shocking, and at times, heart-stopping endings.

Pages are replete with rich descriptions of religious and ethical conundrums, philosophy, and theological ambiguities. The latter, readers may not recognize until much later in the story.

Rising author Richard Barager pulls from his daytime job experience as a nephrologist to create a gripping human-interest account packed with complex characters and spiritual paradoxes.

A fascinating story, "The Atheist and the Parrotfish," which merges age-old spiritual questions with the latest in modern medicine, is replete with complex characters and riveting pages that brim with religious and ethical conundrums, making Richard Barager’s novel a thought-provoking top-of-the-line read."
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Patrician
2.0 out of 5 stars Didactic, Overwritten & Overambitious.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 April 2018
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This book aims high, aspiring to demonstrate great truths about the human condition where science & rationality vie with religious belief & spirituality. The atheist of the title is Dr Cullen Brodie, a highly respected nephrologist (kidney specialist), who however carries a burden of guilt for an undisclosed incident in the past. This has left him with a bitter hatred of religion, & a conviction that a benevolent God would not allow such things, & therefore cannot exist. Ennis, one of Dr Brodie’s patients, is a transvestite who undergoes a heart & kidney transplant successfully, but subsequently feels he has an affinity with the soul of the donor, Carla. She was a young woman killed in an accident, whose husband & father -in -law are also medical men, the latter being CEO of the hospital & nephrology unit. These are the basic elements from which the plot is developed.
Both male & female at once, the parrotfish of the title refers partly to Ennis, but also seems to represent for the author some kind of symbolic truth about God. ..”but a parrotfish, the Christian paradox of Ennis, both male & female, the most beautiful fish in the lagoon.” This has to do with the god-given duality of things & of God himself, as Barager sees it.
For me, it represents one of the major faults of the book, which is the fudging necessary to evoke a sheen of religiosity over the proceedings. One theme that recurs is the (supposed) way in which art - painting, poetry - can point to an ineffable truth, a truth beyond words or reason. Barager is trying to emulate that through his book, to write a parable of ignorance transformed to enlightenment in God. But such didacticism goes contrary to art, because the feelings inspired by art are nebulous in form, not tied to a particular goal.
Similarly, a great deal of sentimental suspension of disbelief is necessary to bring about the kind of ending the author wants, after the various trials & tribulations of the plot.
Also fudged is one of the central planks of the book, the question of Carla’s soul communing with Ennis. While any rational person would be sceptical of this belief, Ennis reveals certain facts that he could only have learnt from Carla, post-mortem . The important point here is that his revelations of this knowledge are necessary to move the plot along, yet later this is placed in brackets, so to speak : “Ennis’s eerie unmasking of MacGregor aside, Cullen did not believe that transplanted organs had the capacity to drag their donor’s souls into unsuspecting recipients.” Thus is an awkwardness in the plot brushed aside, because Barager cannot connive in such unchristian possibilities.
The prose is good, although in keeping with the book’s aspirations it has a tendency to be overwritten, even overwrought. There is a fondness for lingering or lavish descriptions of stylish interiors, for example, almost to the point of ‘life-style’ or product placement. Whether via a quick sketch or precise detailing, landscapes, people’s clothing, faces, emotions - no description is ever understated, but tends rather to the baroque. This is perhaps something more typical of American novels, which tend to aim for the ‘heroic’ style, whereas the English preference is for spare, pared down prose. In this case, the paradox is that the density of the prose tends to obscure, rather than illuminate the characters & events.
Barager is himself a nephrologist, which makes for authoritative & interesting details of medical conditions & treatments, if not always easy for the layperson to understand.
What this book says to me, above all, is that it is not a good idea to use a novel as a proselytising, let alone an evangelising medium.
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VRP
1.0 out of 5 stars Anti-LGBTQ2A+. Be very careful.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 June 2022
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It's been several years since I read this, and it still kind of haunts me. I regret buying it. Before reading, I didn't realize that it was such an awful book that seeks to promote such regressive attitudes.
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F. Gtz.
3.0 out of 5 stars Lacking
Reviewed in the United States on 19 May 2019
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The idea is wonderful, the execution not so much. Was disappointed with this book.
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