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A Children's Bible: A Novel Paperback – February 16, 2021
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Finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction
One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year
Named one of the best novels of the year by Time, Washington Post, NPR, Chicago Tribune, Esquire, BBC, and many others
National Bestseller
"A blistering little classic." ―Ron Charles, Washington Post
A Children’s Bible follows a group of twelve eerily mature children on a forced vacation with their families at a sprawling lakeside mansion. Contemptuous of their parents, the children decide to run away when a destructive storm descends on the summer estate, embarking on a dangerous foray into the apocalyptic chaos outside. Lydia Millet’s prophetic and heartbreaking story of generational divide offers a haunting vision of what awaits us on the far side of Revelation.
- Print length240 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
- Publication dateFebruary 16, 2021
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
- ISBN-100393867382
- ISBN-13978-0393867381
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From the Publisher
Editorial Reviews
Review
― New York Times Book Review, Editors’ Choice
"With this slim yet potent book, [Millet] shows it is even possible to coax pleasure and beauty from the uncomfortable work of highlighting unfortunate truths."
― Emily Bobrow, Wall Street Journal
"[A] story that explores how alarming and baffling it feels to endure the destruction of one’s world."
― Ron Charles, Washington Post
"[A] prime example of that rare and precious thing: a funny dystopia."
― Molly Young, New York
"A dystopian novel of great power."
― Adam Begley, Sunday Times
"Darkly funny and painfully sharp."
― Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times
"[Lydia] Millet mordantly captures the complacency of older generations in the face of apocalypse, and the righteous anger, endurance, and practicality of the young."
― The New Yorker
"With brilliant restraint, Millet conceives her own low-key ‘bible.’…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."
― Jonathan Dee, New York Times Book Review
"Lydia Millet has given us a compellingly written, compact, slyly funny novel that warns of the catastrophic events that may overwhelm us. Unless."
― Jeffrey Ann Goudie, Boston Globe
"A Children’s Bible is a…book that’s easy to enter fully (and not quite as easy to exit; you might have bad dreams)…Millet’s writing is spare but textured. There’s genuine feeling here, and humor, too…I loved the imagination of this book, the way it gracefully―as the title implies―tackles the divine."
― Rumaan Alam, New Republic
"Millet's take on eco-catastrophe is slyly off-kilter in this novel about kids left to fend for themselves as society unravels."
― Elizabeth Kolbert, The Week
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (February 16, 2021)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 240 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0393867382
- ISBN-13 : 978-0393867381
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.7 x 8.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #68,590 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #770 in Fiction Satire
- #1,813 in Family Life Fiction (Books)
- #5,342 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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A Children's Bible: A Novel
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About the author
Lydia Millet is the author of more than a dozen novels and story collections. Known for her dark humor, idiosyncratic characters and language, and strong interest in the relationship between humans and other animals, Millet was born in Boston and grew up in Toronto, Canada. She now lives outside Tucson, Arizona with her family, where she has worked as an editor and writer at the Center for Biological Diversity since 1999. Sometimes called a "novelist of ideas," she won the PEN-USA award for fiction for her early novel My Happy Life (2002); in 2010, her story collection Love in Infant Monkeys was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, and another collection, Fight No More, received an award of merit from the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2019. Her recent novel A Children's Bible, about the intergenerational traumas of climate change and extinction, was a National Book Award finalist and one of the New York Times Best 10 Books of 2020.
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This is the book that could have easily replaced that nod and given readers something to sink their teeth into. Several families are gathered together for a summer beach rental. Told from the perspective of the children it's a stark look at their parents generation and what is happening with the planet. It does this without hitting you over the head with it.
There's a lot to think about and would make a great book club book - plenty of fodder for discussion.
The book is a bit rough, but that’s what makes for good dystopian fiction. Many of the characters are likable - even the ones I’m not invested in are not *bad* people. I’ll guess the casual sex and sex talk is meant to be a genuine report on the mores of mid-21st century adolescence. Not my cup of tea because not my experience, but on the other hand I could identify all to well with the rest of the hedonistic ethos.
I’m not sure why I like this kind of story - maybe they contribute to my gratitude for the relative comfort and stability of my own life. Or, like with ghost stories and horror movies of yore, the frisson of terror is somehow pleasurable. The climate ones, though, are truly scary because we can *see* the likely (or inevitable) future reality they depict:
“The nuclear threat. So quaint.” “It’s like, if only. Right?” “The climate deal makes nukes look kind of sweet. Like being scared of cannons.” “Slingshots.” “A Hyksos recurve bow.” “Canaanite sickle-swords.”
I have apologized to my boys for what we’re leaving them, and have used that stance to encourage their own activism and care. This story makes the point vividly: the “adults” are useless at best, and it’s the “kids” who have to make a difference.
The Bible references are fun - and apropos: the events of the story clearly echo the Bible stories: Eve, Cain and Abel, flood, Tower of Babel, Moses, plague, baby born in a manger, turning a little food into lots, crucifixion, resurrection, healing miracle, promised land - not with any particular didactic scheme or symbolism, just echoes, some noticed by Jack, some not (but Biblically literate readers will notice), all somehow comforting. Jack posits that God is Nature, which reminded me of Octavia Butler’s parable novels where God is Change and humans can either embrace God, thereby having an opportunity to affect the present and the future, or resist God, thereby stunting one’s growth and likelihood of happiness.
One theme is “what is my responsibility?” For those in my group (kids), for those outside my group (parents, strangers)? And there’s a lovely meditation on star stuff - how molecules are the same across time and space so we’re all connected at the most basic level. But the sad thing is my molecules won’t remember your molecules.
There is much to appreciate and enjoy in the details: Eve’s gentle treatment of dissension, her humorous comments on nearly everything (from painful and sarcastic to gentle sweetness to full belly laugh), the beautiful old woman (“the owner”) who enters in the nick of time deus ex machina and reminds me of Irene’s great grandmother in The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald, the flashes of brilliant intellectualism from various characters, and many more.
The bite sized scenes make it easy to read and add propulsion to what is, really, a pretty exciting story. Based on this novel and what I’ve read of her since, I will be reading Lydia Millet’s work for a good while to come.
I understand where this book seems to come from, and it is troubling how the impact of humans on the earth is fundamentally altering our environment and all of its interconnected parts. The book scores some early points, highlighting the faults of the uber rich and the ways that they created the mess and have engineered their own singular solutions. However, if the takeaway is that Gen X - and to a certain point Millennials - have lost their bit because they could not stop a military industrial complex that poisoned our environment and altered our climate, then I find myself pushing back. I think the books’ limp ending is entirely attributable to the dissonance of the conclusion that a group of teenagers will save the day.
To be sure, this is beautifully written and a pleasure to read. I just don’t buy where the journey takes me.