America Has Talent/Against the Grain

About the Book

Like its 2006 predecessor, America Has Talent/Against the Grain, the 2020 book now in your hands. goes deep into the absurdly comical-yet-disturbing world of televangelical confidence games. It rips open the hypocrisy of such “giants” of the field as Jim Bakker, the disgraced (though back for another payday) “minister” who originally set the stage for Tammy Faye Bakker’s stardom ­ an enterprise that backfired on him eventually -and who isn’t averse to backstage-groping a boy or two as he tries with a new broadcast partner to recapture the lightning of those days when melting mascara and hankie-wringing lured viewers to send in those donation they likely couldn’t really afford.

About the Author

John Collings wrote his remarkable book Tantalizing Quest 04240 in 2006. It opened wide a light of saturated window onto televangelism, the shady underbelly of the entertainment world, and was an unpredictable jaunt down many of the diverse paths this peripatetic singing artist has pursued with his particular flair and vision. Collings, a gifted singer and performer, has been deep inside the belly of the beast and has emerged to share a dish fashioned from the innards. That’s just the appetizer for a book that takes a unique look at numerous other aspects of life in this intense and unpredictable moment in time. The author currently lives in in the riverside city of Port Byron. Illinois. He is one-quarter Passamaquoddy, an American Indian people whose traditional domain spans northeastern North America and Canada. Collings is the grandson of a Royal Canadian Mountie, father to two grown children and grandfather to five youngsters.