Rating, 3.33 stars

While clearly not his best story, Everett uses the opportunity to jab at organized religion with a rather obtuse, quasi-fantasy approach.

Ted Street is a professor who after reviewing his life feels a failure. On his way to drowning himself, he has a fatal car accident that severs his head. After the funeral home mortician reattaches his head with somewhat primitive stitching, he's suddenly resurrected during the ceremony and arises from the casket as if nothing happened. The gathering of people that include his wife Gloria and children, Emily and Perry are startled beyond belief and soon word gets out of the strange incident.

In a matter of time, the media huddles around his home and dark humor prevails. Holed up at home to fend off the media, Ted and the family finally sneak out to the market only to see him be captured by Jesus freaks that are lead by a midget named Big Daddy. When he arrives at their distant complex hours later, its the beginning of a Twilight Zone type story filled with religious rants, offbeat characters and continual jabbing at religion.

From here the plot twists and turns while the jabs morph into society's failure to see life for what it is. Some feel Ted is the devil, other the messiah. With no pulse or blood, the fact Ted speaks, eats and functions baffles all, including himself. Comical at heart, attempts to 'kill someone that's dead' fail miserably.

At the end of the day, I felt there was something lacking having compared it to more current books he's written. Initially, the idea of a headless corpse arising was darkly funny, but the rest of it left me cold. Having read a dozen of Everett's books and knowing a writer's storytelling evolves, I feel he truly hit his stride 10 years ago. That said, the fact remains he's one of the most unique, multi-faceted authors in publishing who writes an array of genre with skill and deftness. A great sense of humor, appreciation for the human condition, he's rare if not anything else. ( )

2008 read: I loved this and couldn't get enough.

2022 reread: I wish this were all we had to worry about from the religious zealots and the government. ( )

This was an uneasy satire, setting it's sights on the topical targets of 2004: Evangelicals, neo-cons and the media. A despondent academic is driving to his suicide when he is unexpectedly decapitated in a traffic accident. He sits up and begins speaking three days later at his funeral. How's this possible? Journalists want an interview. Zealots want to kill him as a diabolical agent and the government wants to utilize his biochemistry to create immortal soldiers. Each of these plots surface and then wilt. American Desert failed to grab this reader. ( )

A strange story one has to read to believe. I am not sure there is an appropriate way to describe it. ( )

Odd, existential, yet delightful, American Desert is the story of Ted Street, who, on his way to committing suicide, is decapitated by a UPS truck. However, Ted is not dead. Or is he? Sitting up in his coffin at his own funeral, Ted begins a whole new kind of life. Is Ted a devil? An angel? A ghost? The Messiah? Or, something else entirely?
This book grapples with questions of life and death in a wholly unique and hilarious way. It's laugh-out-loud funny, but also gets one thinking about what kind of life she is living and what she would do with a second chance if it was handed to her. Ted is both bizarre and relatable. His wife seems off, but genuine. The reactions of his children to this situation are heartbreaking and also incredibly genuine. Everett also gives obscurely fitting names to each of the characters, some of which are obvious, but all can be discovered or confirmed by checking Wikipedia.
My one complaint is that I wish there was a bigger payoff at the end. The conclusion is fitting, but a little anti-climactic. ( )