How to Stop Believing in Hell (Paperback) | Released: 21 Sep 2014

Kirkus Reviews: "...Kimball's debut explores his hallucinatory religious mania, from his early childhood onward, beginning when he attended Catholic school. The early pages guide readers through narratives of his uncomfortable childhood traumas, sometimes in ugly detail.... Various other moments of shame revolved around school. Finding sex repugnant and sinful, he decided early on to remain celibate; he avoided sex until his eventual institutionalization. Meanwhile, hallucinatory monsters-including Lorus, "a turbulent face, golden like the comedy mask..."-and company pushed him away from religion, though he did convert to Pentecostalism in spite of them. Through this process, Kimball developed a solipsistic worldview, in which he was never sure others existed. Ultimately, though, it was his fear of damnation that became his greatest obsession, driving all the rest of his delusions and fears. He does exhibit a flair for description...: "On summer evenings, I liked to stand on the arroyo side of the house at night, alone, feeling the desert breeze through the tamarisks and smelling the clean desert smells in the warm darkness. The long row of tamarisks, with its tens of thousands of insects of a thousand species, hummed like the telephone network in The Castle, a beautiful, accidental music.'" Author's Description: I had a beautiful early childhood spent in an adobe house in the Sonoran Desert. Then I was spooked by religion. At ten, I was praying continuously to drive away blasphemous thoughts. At eleven, I asked God to destroy my immortal soul so that I couldn't go to Hell. I took a vow of perpetual celibacy when I was thirteen. At twenty, I lived in terror that I was all that existed and that I was already dead and in Hell. I began stealing from churches. By committing sacrilege I hoped to separate myself from God and the fear of God. Later I committed the unforgivable sin by blaspheming the Holy Ghost. I ceased to believe in God, but I still believed in Hell. I was hospitalized. After a few months, I received passes on Sundays to attend services at an independent Pentecostal church. I had learned that the church members didn't believe in Divine punishment. I was led before the altar and told to repeat various pious phrases. The phrases soon became nonsense syllables. I repeated those. Then my tired tongue began spastically uttering nonsense on its own. I still believed in Hell. I had sex for the first time with another mental patient at the hospital to break my vow of celibacy. It was quick and mechanical. There was no foreplay. It didn't help. After being discharged, I became an alcoholic and heroin addict. After I quit my addictions, I began walking down crowded sidewalks speaking loud nonsense and screaming. I tried very hard to stop and couldn't. I found a job as an elevator operator. I began talking then screaming on the elevator. I became one of the many crazy street people in my city. After an act of providence that allowed me to reason disingenuously against my lifelong beliefs, I escaped my fears and eventually became a successful lawyer.
About the Author: Robert Kimball graduated from the University of Arizona, Phi Beta Kappa, in 1967. He taught high school for thirteen years. In 1991 he graduated from The University of Virginia School of Law. He worked as an attorney for the FCC until he retired in 2002. He now lives in Mexico.