LEFT COAST WRITERS BOOK LAUNCH: God Sex and Psychosis by Todd Crawshaw
Saturday, June 9th, 2018 || 7pm Book Passage-Corte Madera|| 51 Tamal Vista Dr. Corte Madera || www.bookpassage.com
You won’t want to miss this: another entertaining and provocative work by author and artist Todd Crawshaw.
When criminal psychologist Mira Skyles is assigned by a court order to evaluate Egon Norwood, a person of interest in a serial murder investigation, she recognizes both a man with a dissociative identity disorder and the boy who once saved her life, with whom she shares a secret history.
God, Sex & Psychosis is divided into three sections. Part One is the thematic overture. It highlights the formative years of Egon and his twin sister, Faye, both traumatized by an abusive father. Part Two illustrates the fragmented points of view of both siblings, now adults, being analyzed by Mira, a court-appointed psychotherapist struggling with her own inner demons. The suspected serial killer assigned to her is mysterious and charming. Against her better judgment, she finds herself falling in love. Part Three is Mira’s story, told as a confessional: how she was gang-raped at age twelve and scarred by her attackers; how her rage manifested into a quest for revenge, which caused two deaths at the college she had attended; and how these incidents are connected to murders taking place in San Francisco.
How do children cope with horror? What is the mental and spiritual path to recovery, to revenge, to love, and to redemption? With dissociative identity disorder, a person’s identity is fragmented into two or more independent personalities, in essence, a psychological puzzle. So, too, is God, Sex & Psychosis. The protagonists have experienced sexual trauma at an early age, a root cause of dissociative identity disorder. Their experiences have affected them in distinctively different ways. One becomes a criminal psychologist; the other, a performing artist. In their professional lives, both are intelligent and functional, yet they are dysfunctional in other areas. At the core of this psychological thriller is a haunting love story, infused with seemingly independent and irredeemable elements that connect to form a denouement not expected.
Todd Crawshaw is the author of Heretofore and Exploits of the Satyr, both novels, and Light-Years in the Dark: StoryPoems. A member of Left Coast Writers, he is the founder of Crawshaw Design, a graphic design firm based in San Francisco that provides integrated brand marketing for print and the web. He considers creative writing to be a visual art: “Like atoms begetting atoms that beget molecules, when uniquely linked, words form a DNA of indelible visions.” He is a graduate of the University of Oregon with a degree in psychology. He lives in Northern California with his wife and is the father of two daughters.
“Your book is freakin’ amazing – seriously. I could not put it down – even when I should have been fixing Thanksgiving dinner.”
— Kate Johnston, Senior Staff Counsel, Dept. of Social Services, Legal Division/Enforcement, State of California