It is now available for purchase online. Here is a link to it on Amazon. You may also find it on Barnes and Noble here.
Below is the foreward I wrote for his book. May it honor him, and may he rest in peace.
Foreward
When I read Richmond’s first book, The Deviants, I was sure it was the wildest thing I had ever seen. Yet his subsequent books, Your Yesterday Is My Tomorrow and Witch Hunt, never failed to take me on voyages through unconventional waters. His writing is gripping, if out of the ordinary.
Even as his fourth book, Frozen Ghost, was in the process of publication, Richmond’s life ended too early. He died suddenly of a heart attack after spending the day with family touring the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the “Lynching Memorial,” in Montgomery, Alabama. On his very last day, he was longing for justice, something that was deeply important to him.
My father, my other brothers, and I decided to honor his life and memory by following through with his plans to have this book published. It is with bittersweet joy that we share it with you.
I could tell you about Richmond’s relentless love for God, for Christian theology, for world religions, for philosophy, for social justice, and for the Church. I could tell you about his amazing academic accomplishments. But what I really want to tell you is this. He had a brilliant and beautiful mind.
I sometimes say he could waltz into a room and teach a course in world religions that would knock your socks off, but he might not be able to find his own socks. The unfolding of his beautiful mind started when he was teaching and involved in his first doctoral program, before mom died eighteen years ago. I say that not to call attention to his suffering. I say that because more than anyone I know, he was an overcomer. This is what inspires me the most about his life.
No matter what the obstacles, he was eternally fascinated with theology and philosophy and loved to find hints of it in movies and fiction. He refused to stop creating. He finished a Ph.D. at Purdue in philosophy and literature, and this was his proudest moment. He simply loved to write.
I once told him that his writing “defied genre.” He took that as a huge compliment, which it was meant to be, and then used that phrase on the back cover of a subsequent book. The threads he could weave between philosophy, comics, vivid memories, fantasy novels, painful past experiences, science fiction, and theology gave me insight into the beauty of his mind. Writing was his way of making sense of things, of finding peace, and of blessing the world.
As I read this book, I mused on his story of the broken mirror, and Richmond saying, “I just looked at it and it broke!” I know that really happened, for I was the brother who teased him about it for years. I pondered the technical term “audio pareidolia” he mentioned, clearly a symptom of his condition which he had become educated about. I vividly remembered conversations we had about the voice of Diana, who was speaking to him from across the stars. As always, I found reminders of the intricate way he wove various threads of his life together through writing. It is truly a tapestry.
I have learned more from my brother Richmond than anyone I have ever known about courage, determination, and relentless creativity. I’m delighted that after that long mental, intellectual, and philosophical journey of his beautiful mind, he had unwavering faith. In recent years, he loved going to church and being involved in teaching Sunday School, singing in the choir, and ministries of addiction recovery.
He died too early. But my heart is full of gratitude that he died happy, stable, creative, and excited about this book.
Richmond would have been thrilled to know that at his funeral, I would close my brief remarks with the famous quote from Captain Kirk at the funeral of his dear, Vulcan friend Spock. “Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most … human.”
And it was.
Stephen Pierce West
Brother of Richmond Pierce West
August 2021
