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A billowing historical novel about two sisters taken in by a reclusive utopian cult in the Adirondack mountains in the early 1950s.
Fleeing a mysterious, fiery cataclysm on their struggling family farm, sisters Zina (aged fifteen) and Presendia (eleven) find themselves lost in the treacherous wooded hills of upstate New York. Wary of authorities and carrying a dark secret, they take shelter with a woolly band of "settlers" living off the grid on a dilapidated campground.
Uneasy in their new surroundings, the two girls weigh the odds of fleeing back to the woods, before becoming inculcated in the rustic hedonism of this intentional community, shaped by the preaching of the group's profane but visionary leader: a rough-necked charismatic named Peter.
Singled out for her deep reading and precocious temper, Zina is tasked with codifying Peter's anarchic message in a book-a testament to rouse the masses with the promise of a new consciousness that will rise from the ashes of a decadent and hypocritical post-war American society.
But as months go by and material deprivations on the settlement push Peter towards increasingly nefarious means of maintaining discipline to keep the mission going, Zina must decide where safety for her and her sister truly lies: by taking a position of power as Peter's trusted councillor and scribe, or fleeing back into the tangled woods, where the sins of her past may be waiting for her.
A haunting, strikingly vivid depiction of an isolated world, power and its reproductions, and the forgotten, darker side of postwar American life, Book of the Flock is a magnetic, unsettling opus from an exciting talent. ROB BENVIE is the author of the novels Safety of War and Maintenance (both via Coach House Books), and most recently, Bleeding Light (Invisible). His writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, McSweeney's, VICE, Joyland, The Ex-Puritan, CNQ, and is anthologized in the Best Canadian Essays. Benvie's first produced feature screenplay, the dark comedy Stanleyville, premiered at Fantasia Festival, and was picked up for distribution by Oscilloscope Laboratories. Rob has recorded and performed internationally as a songwriter/multi-instrumentalist with The Dears, Thrush Hermit, Camouflage Nights and Bankruptcy, and solo as Tigre Benvie. He has composed/produced music extensively for film, television and radio.
Fleeing a mysterious, fiery cataclysm on their struggling family farm, sisters Zina (aged fifteen) and Presendia (eleven) find themselves lost in the treacherous wooded hills of upstate New York. Wary of authorities and carrying a dark secret, they take shelter with a woolly band of "settlers" living off the grid on a dilapidated campground.
Uneasy in their new surroundings, the two girls weigh the odds of fleeing back to the woods, before becoming inculcated in the rustic hedonism of this intentional community, shaped by the preaching of the group's profane but visionary leader: a rough-necked charismatic named Peter.
Singled out for her deep reading and precocious temper, Zina is tasked with codifying Peter's anarchic message in a book-a testament to rouse the masses with the promise of a new consciousness that will rise from the ashes of a decadent and hypocritical post-war American society.
But as months go by and material deprivations on the settlement push Peter towards increasingly nefarious means of maintaining discipline to keep the mission going, Zina must decide where safety for her and her sister truly lies: by taking a position of power as Peter's trusted councillor and scribe, or fleeing back into the tangled woods, where the sins of her past may be waiting for her.
A haunting, strikingly vivid depiction of an isolated world, power and its reproductions, and the forgotten, darker side of postwar American life, Book of the Flock is a magnetic, unsettling opus from an exciting talent. ROB BENVIE is the author of the novels Safety of War and Maintenance (both via Coach House Books), and most recently, Bleeding Light (Invisible). His writing has appeared in the Toronto Star, McSweeney's, VICE, Joyland, The Ex-Puritan, CNQ, and is anthologized in the Best Canadian Essays. Benvie's first produced feature screenplay, the dark comedy Stanleyville, premiered at Fantasia Festival, and was picked up for distribution by Oscilloscope Laboratories. Rob has recorded and performed internationally as a songwriter/multi-instrumentalist with The Dears, Thrush Hermit, Camouflage Nights and Bankruptcy, and solo as Tigre Benvie. He has composed/produced music extensively for film, television and radio.