Counter-Currents
Andy Nowicki
The Columbine Pilgrim
San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2011
112 pages
OUT OF PRINT
The Columbine Pilgrim is a dark journey into the labyrinth, an exploration of the twisted psychic pathways by which resentment and rage, sentimentalism and self-pity, alienation and nihilism lead to mass murder.
Join Tony Meander, a brilliant yet troubled man, as he makes a curious “pilgrimage” to Littleton, Colorado to visit the site of the notorious 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
His mind dashes to and fro, between present and past, between fantasy and fact, as he contemplates committing a bold, terrible act that will disturb the universe.
Advance Praise for The Columbine Pilgrim
When I received the manuscript of The Columbine Pilgrim, I knew Andy Nowicki as a Georgia-based Catholic reactionary with a penchant for dark subjects, much like Flannery O’Connor, one of my favorite writers. A superficial glance at this meditation on the psychology of nihilism, and I was wondering, “What hath Flannery O’Connor wrought?” At the time, Arizona spree-killer Jared Lee Loughner was the center of the American news media’s attention, and the uncanny parallels between Loughner and Nowicki’s creation Tony Meander drove home the profundity of his insights. This thin novella contains more truth than some psychologists’ collected writings. In a world hurtling into the abyss, The Columbine Pilgrim may well become a survival manual.
—Greg Johnson, Editor, North American New Right
Tony Meander has a “grudge against life.” And in his struggle to overcome the mediocrity and passive nihilism of the modern world, he descends into the furious, infantile, and sadistic hell of the guillotine and torture chamber, in which “Wrath Makes Right” and “Ich bin Gott.” Evoking Poe, Nietzsche, and Boyd Rice (among many others), Andy Nowicki tells a tale that’s as grotesque and morbidly funny as it is disturbing and thought-provoking. Tony Meander won’t be leaving my imagination, for better and for worse.
—Richard Spencer, Editor, Alternative Right
I think I know what Andy Nowicki is trying to do in The Columbine Pilgrim. It’s the same thing I’ve tried to do, from time to time, in non-fiction form, albeit with less success: anatomize the special Evil of our time, an Evil that doesn’t reach for the things ordinary criminals seek—swag, power, or pleasure as most criminals would understand those things. Instead this Evil aims at destroying others, with the evildoer undisturbed by his resulting self-destruction or, indeed, happily intent on it. That’s as far as I can go; chances are, a writer can go further only through fiction. That’s Nowicki’s way, and he does more than anatomize Evil: he worms his way inside it. Forty-five years ago, in Chicago, Richard Speck raped and slaughtered eight nurses for pleasure. He had no thought of suicide. We’re into something else now. And Andy Nowicki is our guide.
—Nicholas Strakon, Editor, The Last Ditch
About the Author
Andy Nowicki is a dissident reactionary malcontent who lives in Savannah, Georgia. He has written for several print and online journals of social commentary, including The Last Ditch, Alternative Right, Takimag.com, New Oxford Review, and American Renaissance. This is his second novel. His first novel, Considering Suicide
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