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Millet presses that last point in the novel’s latter pages as the brief peace of the farm is disrupted in often horrific fashion. Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction An indelible novel of teenage alienation and adult complacency in an unraveling world., A Children's Bible, A Novel, Lydia Millet, 9781324005032 The novel takes some time to find its footing, introducing a host of characters who are initially difficult to differentiate, but it ultimately settles on Evie and her rising fury at the grown-ups’ incapacity to rise to a challenge and her younger brother, Jack, who’s become increasingly obsessed with a Bible he’s received and whether it can serve as a climate change survival handbook. With brilliant restraint, Millet conceives her own low-key "bible" the same way. A group of friends, successful “artsy and educated types,” plan an “offensively long reunion” at a summer house “built by robber barons in the 19th century,” somewhere on the East Coast. In this fable of climate change and generational divides, an intense hurricane hits the East Coast, where a group of families is summering together. 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. The parents’ chief activity involves stockpiling alcohol, leaving their children to explore the area. 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. Grow Your Child's Library with Top Young Reader Series, 50% Off All Funko Wetmore Forest POP!, Plush, and More, Knock Knock Gifts, Books & Office Supplies, Buy One, Get One 50% Off Holiday Boxed Cards, Learn how to enable JavaScript on your browser. Review: ‘A Children’s Bible,’ by Lydia Millet – StarTribune . (At one point he attempts to gather up animals, Noah-like.) A novel of teenage alienation and adult complacency in an unraveling world. Evie, the narrator, is one of a group of kids and teenagers spending a summer with their parents at a lakeside rental mansion that’s pitched as a vacation retreat but increasingly feels like a bulwark against increasingly intense weather on the coasts. Footer. An allegorical tale that confronts the follies of willfully ignoring climate change, A Children's Bible can still be both moving and touching. When I picked up Lydia Millet’s A Children’s Bible, its story felt about 15 minutes away from becoming reality. Your privacy is important! This somber novel by Millet (Fight No More, 2018, etc.) This superb novel begins as a generational comedy...and turns steadily darker, as climate collapse and societal breakdown encroach. Lydia Millet, a prolific writer who has a master's degree in environmental policy, paints a portrait of kids ultimately being the hope for our future. Javascript is not enabled in your browser. 2020-02-09A group of children are forced to fend for themselves in the face of rising sea levels, worsening storms, and willfully ignorant parents. “… she shows it is even possible to coax pleasure and beauty from the uncomfortable work of highlighting unfortunate truths.”, “… a blistering little classic: “Lord of the Flies” for a generation of young people left to fend for themselves on their parents’ rapidly warming planet.”, “This superb novel begins as a generational comedy … and turns steadily darker, as climate collapse and societal breakdown encroach. Lydia Millet has won awards from PEN Center USA and the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Even medium-term.” After a massive storm interrupts the summer idyll and brings looting and riots to New York and Boston, the parents lose themselves to booze and cocaine and the children flee with a menagerie of rescued animals, seeking refuge at a farmhouse. In the process, Jack’s Bible plays an allegorical role too: Can we maintain civilization as we know it when the world descends into Old Testament–style chaos? Read our privacy policy. Her books have been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Critics Circle Award and longlisted for the National Book Award. 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. For a better shopping experience, please upgrade now. Auto Suggestions are available once you type at least 3 letters. She lives outside Tucson, Arizona. To call it a generational allegory seems like an understatement. An allegorical tale that confronts the follies of willfully ignoring climate change, A Children's Bible can still be both moving and touching. To Jack, the Bible is an old book found in a decaying summer house, an artifact to try to make sense of, a missive from some lost world. It is hilarious yet tender; absurd yet chillingly realistic, nostalgic yet prescient. It's a tale in which whoever or whatever comes after us might recognize, however imperfectly, a certain continuity: an exotic but still decodable shred of evidence from the lost world that is the world we are living in right now. When a violent storm descends, the children are driven from the estate, and narrator Eve seeks to protect her little brother as the landscape increasingly recalls scenes from his beloved picture Bible. Millet’s allegorical messages are simple: The next generation will have to clean up (or endure) the climate mess prior ones created, and any notion that we can simply spend our way to higher ground is a delusion. Lydia Millet’s ‘A Children’s Bible’ is a parable of childhood and the environment – Boston Globe. : Lydia Millet’s ‘A Children’s Bible’ is a parable of childhood and the environment, The Reunion Apocolypse: A New Novel from Lydia Millet, Review: ‘A Children’s Bible,’ by Lydia Millet. 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. As bewitching, unflinching, wry, and profoundly attuned to the state of the planet as ever, supremely gifted Millet tells a commanding and wrenching tale of cataclysmic change and what it will take to survive. 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. You can view Barnes & Noble’s Privacy Policy. Millet mordantly captures the complacency of older generations in the face of apocalypse, and the righteous anger, endurance, and practicality of the young. Millet follows up Sweet Lamb of Heaven with a lean, ironic allegory of climate change and biblical comeuppance. Members save with free shipping everyday! Tagged with: fiction, novel. 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. ©1997-2020 Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Inc. 122 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10011, Longlisted for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. But Millet’s light touch never falters; in this time of great upheaval, she implies, our foundational myths take on new meaning and hope.”, – Editors’ Choice, New York Times Book Review, “To call it a generational allegory seems like an understatement. The Reunion Apocolypse: A New Novel from Lydia Millet – David L. Ulin for 4Columns. 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. They bring along their children, ranging in age from prepubescent to 17, who devise inventive ways to ignore them. This lurid section, in which they are besieged by armed raiders searching for food, is shaky, and allusions to biblical tales such as Noah’s Ark and the Ten Commandments feel facile, but the novel regains its footing once parents and children reunite, with the children calling the shots. With the young teenage narrator, Evie, Millet perfectly captures the blend of indifference and scorn with which the teenagers view their boozy parents, emblematic of humanity’s dithering in the face of environmental catastrophe: “They didn’t do well with long-term warnings. Millet is one of the most fascinating novelists working.”, “As bewitching, unflinching, wry, and profoundly attuned to the state of the planet as ever, supremely gifted Millet tells a commanding and wrenching tale of cataclysmic change and what it will take to survive.”, “[A] tense, prophetic … [and] gripping page-turner.”, – Donna Bettencourt, Library Journal (starred review), “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.”, “A bleak and righteously angry tale determined to challenge our rationalizations about climate change.”, “A Children’s Bible is a beautiful, brutal novel that calls all of us to account.”, “It is wildly funny, deeply scary and unnervingly familiar”, – Adam Begley, The London Sunday Times (pay wall), An Epic Storm Turns a Summer Holiday Into Potent Allegory, A Children’s Bible and 9 Other Reads I Can’t Get Out of My Head, – Molly Young for New York Times Magazine, After the flood, now what? Click or Press Enter to view the items in your shopping bag or Press Tab to interact with the Shopping bag tooltip. Use up arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+up arrow) and down arrow (for mozilla firefox browser alt+down arrow) to review and enter to select. is a Lord of the Flies–style tale with a climate-fiction twist. Millet's first novel since the National Book Award long-listed Sweet Lamb of Heaven demonstrates her penchant for insightfully off-kilter scenarios as a group of preternaturally grown-up children make do while grudgingly vacationing with their heedless parents at a lakeside mansion. Millet is one of the most fascinating novelists working. Uh-oh, it looks like your Internet Explorer is out of date. (May). Lydia Millet, a prolific writer who has a master's degree in environmental policy, paints a portrait of kids ultimately being the hope for our future. Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet’s 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. Submit your email address to receive Barnes & Noble offers & updates. https://www.startribune.com/review-a-children-s-bible-by-lydia-millet/570308402 [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.

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