On and off for about the last 20 years, one writing project has hung over me like a haunting.
It started out as the chronicle of my college years, birthed when I was much more innocent. Those college years formed the crucible of my adulthood: a slow transmutation from the child of white evangelical boondoggled belief into an adult who now questions almost everything. The only thing this boy doesn’t question now is the power of love and grace.
What does this mean in writing terms? It means that old unpolished mess of a memoir has maturated into fiction, into wild fiction. At best, my book has become a picaresque novel; at worst it’s a scatological comedy of errors; in truth I hope it’s satire and a progressive polemic. And, as one of my beta readers noted, a love story.
Various incarnations of this tale flailed through workshops, contests and innumerable reinventions. Let’s be honest, not everyone liked it—some workshopping writers were aghast. But if you have navigated to this website, I hope you might like it!
Beginning on April Fool’s Day 2026, The Four Jacks Annotated, Uncensored will be available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover and Kindle editions. I recommend the print options. The novel includes 145 demented footnotes essential to the story, which can be a smidge awkward on a Kindle.
You may have noticed the novel is by “Robert Pavchick” and not Rich Novotney.
Why the pseudonym? Several reasons. First, The Four Jacks is indeed something different, a novel in the truest sense of the word: novel as in new, as in undefined. And it stands apart from my more traditional fiction which I’ll continue to write under my own name. And, most importantly, the pseudonym subverts the supposed sincerity of the “memoir” form; that insincerity is central to The Four Jack’s scurrilous, mendacious, and outrageous satire.
As hinted above, some of the story’s shenanigans spring from actual events. Which? That would be telling. But I can assure you any scraps of remaining fact have been lavishly befouled by the author’s depraved imagination.
I’ll conclude with one important reminder. Take the “Uncensored” part of the title seriously. The book’s unhinged humor is not bowdlerized. So laugh without guilt and laugh hard. Laugh hard at hard truths. And those hard truths? They embrace the central tenets of social justice. So, sorry—not sorry. As long as you laugh…and maybe learn. Because, you see, I learned so much writing this.
Below, please enjoy a preview of the novel’s opening pages—its first two chapters. If you like what you see, The Four Jacks will be available at Amazon on April 1st.
Thank you for your interest!
–Rich Novotney, publisher and “editor” of The Four Jacks.
Art is My Religion 