by William Skink

I have in my hands a book that you now have access to, if you choose, but I’m not sure that you should. You aren’t ready for this book. And if you read a book like this before you’re ready, you’ll drop it before it even begins.

I got the book, along with around 200 other people, as a part of the author’s fundraising campaign, and through the author’s gracious openness, we became a part of the book. 

Not only did we read about our impact on the author (in footnotes and a special introduction just for us) we were actually a big part of the catalyst that saw the author engage in a last minute rearrangement of the chapters (the maps) before sending the manuscript to the printers

Maybe none of this interests you. Why should it? Why should some fanboy writing about his exclusive access to a book he hasn’t even shared the title of yet, by an author who similarly goes without name, be of any interest to you?

Well, let me ask you a question: have you ever seen a movie, read a book, or been impacted by a product of our popular culture that inspired you to want to, in some way, make something similar yourself? Something infused with the magic that touched you and, in some critical yet intangible way, helped form who you are?

This writer has, and so has the author of the book. 

The author of the book fortuitously failed at achieving his dreams of film success. Not only that, he did so while his brother succeeded miserably and destroyed himself.

The author ran away from the poisoned origin of his rearing (near the crown and the wolf and rise of Labor) and would have become just another piece of discarded debris left in monstrous piles by the soulless dream machine we call Hollywood if he hadn’t decided to return to his damaged body, throw away his blood coins, and take on the humble garments of thrift to understand just what the fuck was operating like a mind virus inside him that caused him to shoot his star out in self-destructive cycles of reenactment.

And he wrote a book about it, called 16 Maps of Hell. 

If you think you might be ready to explore the maps, it is now available to those outside the tribe the author is a member of; a tribe trying to heal itself from the forces that feed on our attention.

But you might not be ready, so let this be your warning: this book is not for everyone.

P.S. I will be writing more about 16 Maps in the weeks ahead.