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A Children's Bible

Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
1 of 1 copy available
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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    • Publisher's Weekly

      January 20, 2020
      Millet follows up Sweet Lamb of Heaven with a lean, ironic allegory of climate change and biblical comeuppance. 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. They bring along their children, ranging in age from prepubescent to 17, who devise inventive ways to ignore them. 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. 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. 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. Millet’s look at intergenerational strife falls short of her best work.

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Xe Sands offers an excellent performance of this timely and thought-provoking audiobook. A commentary on climate change, this novel blends a view of contemporary life with a warning about a bleak future. Sands voices Evie, a teenage narrator whose dim view of adults is well justified. With her peers, she must take charge when a summer stay at a coastal mansion becomes a battle for survival. Sands balances an authentic adolescent attitude with a thoughtful, responsible tone that reflects the side of Evie that is beyond her years. Her Evie is a coolheaded figure who inspires listeners to wonder about Millet's message. The dialogue is realistic, and Sands's pacing is superb. Millet offers much to consider in this unique novel, and Sands brings the story to life without excess drama or sentimentality. L.B.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2020, Portland, Maine

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