The Atheist
and the Parrotfish
A Novel

A doctor’s religious doubt is shaken by a transplant patient’s eerie knowledge of his organ donor’s most intimate secret.

Nephrologist Cullen Brodie’s disbelief in the afterlife is tested when a cross-dressing transplant patient exhibits behaviors and traits of his female organ donor—details about whom the patient inexplicably knows. The patient’s eerie knowledge of his donor’s greatest secret forces Cullen to consider the unimaginable: transmigration of a human soul. READ MORE

Now Available For Sale!

Red Clay, Yellow Grass:
A Novel of the 1960s

Red clay and yellow grass, a battleground and a rock festival…the senseless slaughter of Vietnam and the folly of utopian fantasy.

A startlingly vivid portrayal of one of the most colorful and turbulent periods in recent American history: the 1960s, as seen through the eyes of two ill-fated college lovers at odds over Vietnam. Their story and the story of their generation spill across the era’s most iconic settings—the legendary battleground of Khe Sanh; a Midwestern campus riven by dissent; and Altamont Speedway, scene of the notorious rock festival profiled in the film Gimme Shelter. Let this richly satisfying story transport you to a Sixties state of mind. READ MORE

“Richard Barager has written the novel of the Sixties—a passion-filled, pitch-perfect, roller coaster of a tale about the decade that divides us all.”
—David Horowitz, Former New Left Radical and Bestselling Author

Check out the thrilling new book trailer for Red Clay, Yellow Grass, below.

Coming Summer 2018

FROM THE BLOG

New Book Award for The Atheist and the Parrotfish

I'm thrilled to announce that The Atheist and the Parrotfish won Best Literary Fiction in the National Association of Book Entrepreneurs (NABE) Summer 2017 Pinnacle Book Achievement Awards. Congrats to my editor, Eric Pinder, our cover designer, Dale Pease, and to...

Life Without Pain

Check out the latest article I wrote for Psychology Today, "Life Without...

From the Publisher

“Medicine and religion intersect in a literary novel sure to fascinate, and quite possibly, to entice you to examine your own beliefs.”

RICHARD BARAGER

By day I’m a nephrologist, treating dialysis patients and kidney transplant recipients. By night I write fiction. I believe the two finest callings in life are doctor and writer, one ministering to the human condition, the other illuminating it, each capable of transforming it.

I earned BA and MD degrees at the University of Minnesota and did my postgraduate training at Emory University in Atlanta and the University of California in San Diego. I live now in Orange County, CA.

I am a champion of the healing power of literature and sometimes prescribe novels or short stories to patients to help them cope with illness. Fiction explores meaning in a way science cannot. Sometimes only fiction tells the truth. READ MORE