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Book Cover for: A Gay Mormon Missionary in Pompeii, Johnny Townsend

A Gay Mormon Missionary in Pompeii

Johnny Townsend

What's a gay Mormon missionary doing in Italy?

He's trying to save his own soul as well as the souls of others, terrorized by homophobic doctrine into committing acts of cultural imperialism to prove his worthiness.

In these tales chronicling the two-year mission of Robert Anderson, we see a young man tormented by his inability to be the man the Church says he should be. After enduring a major earthquake, encounters with organized crime, a serious bus accident, and conflicts with horrendous mission leaders, he dreams of nothing more than escaping his suffocating existence any way he can.

But one day, he meets another missionary who loves him, and his world changes forever.


Book Details

  • Publisher: Johnny Townsend
  • Publish Date: Apr 6th, 2023
  • Pages: 500
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - 0002
  • Dimensions: 8.50in - 5.50in - 1.11in - 1.39lb
  • EAN: 9798987866689
  • Categories: LGBTQ+ - GayLiteraryHistorical - 20th Century - General

About the Author

Townsend, Johnny: - A climate crisis immigrant who relocated from New Orleans to Seattle in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Johnny Townsend wrote the first account of the UpStairs Lounge fire, an attack on a French Quarter gay bar which killed 32 people in 1973. He was an associate producer for the documentary Upstairs Inferno, for the sci-fi film Time Helmet, and for the deaf gay short Flirting, with Possibilities. His books include Please Evacuate, Racism by Proxy, and Wake Up and Smell the Missionaries. His novel, Orgy at the STD Clinic, set entirely on public transit, details political extremism, climate upheaval, and anti-maskers in the midst of a pandemic.

Praise for this book

"Told from a believably conversational first-person perspective, [A Gay Mormon Missionary in Pompeii's] novelistic focus on Anderson's journey to thoughtful self-acceptance allows for greater character development than often seen in short stories, which makes this well-paced work rich and satisfying, and one of Townsend's strongest. An extremely important contribution to the field of Mormon fiction." Named to Kirkus Reviews' Best of 2011.

Kirkus Reviews

"The Rift," from A Gay Mormon Missionary in Pompeii, is a "fascinating tale of an untenable situation...a tour de force."

David Lenson, editor, The Massachusetts Review