A Children's Bible
Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet's sublime new novel--her first since the National Book Award long-listed Sweet Lamb of Heaven--follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion.
Contemptuous of their parents, who pass their days in a stupor of liquor, drugs, and sex, the children feel neglected and suffocated at the same time. When a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, the group's ringleaders--including Eve, who narrates the story--decide to run away, leading the younger ones on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside.
As the scenes of devastation begin to mimic events in the dog-eared picture Bible carried around by her beloved little brother, Eve devotes herself to keeping him safe from harm.
A Children's Bible is a prophetic, heartbreaking story of generational divide--and a haunting vision of what awaits us on the far side of Revelation.
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Eco-fiction dystopias often make our climate future outright calamities of tidal waves and massive tree die-offs. Millet...knows what's coming is likely to be more subtle, and the slow-motion collapse she imagines in her latest novel is what makes it so harrowing.--Mark Athitakis
This superb novel begins as a generational comedy...and turns steadily darker, as climate collapse and societal breakdown encroach. But Millet's light touch never falters; in this time of great upheaval, she implies, our foundational myths take on new meaning and hope.
[D]arkly funny and painfully sharp.--Carolyn Kellogg
Millet mordantly captures the complacency of older generations in the face of apocalypse, and the righteous anger, endurance, and practicality of the young.
[C]ompellingly written, compact [and] slyly funny.--Jeffrey Ann Goldie
Blazingly witty.
[A] blistering little classic...Millet's wit and her penchant for strange twists produce the kind of climate fiction we need: a novel that moves beyond the realm of reporting and editorial, a story that explores how alarming and baffling it feels to endure the destruction of one's world. Take this book, eat it up.--Ron Charles
To call it a generational allegory seems like an understatement. Millet is one of the most fascinating novelists working.
[A] tense, prophetic...[and] gripping page-turner.--Donna Bettencourt
If you think it's hard to find original voices in contemporary fiction, you're not really reading properly--Millet is one such voice: comic, erudite, humane.--Jonny Diamond
