mikerickson reviewed Father of Lies by Brian Evenson
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4 stars
I can repeat the mantra of, "the presence of challenging content in media is not an endorsement of said content" all I want, but goddamn if this wasn't a difficult read. There were scenes that had me physically grimacing and pulling all sorts of faces while reading with one eye closed, as if that'd spare me the mental imagery of what was happening on the page.
What we have here is a blatant repudiation of organized religion and what it looks like at its worst. A local provost of a regional Christian offshoot sect is accused of unspeakable things by some in his congregation, but the clergy rallies around their guy to protect him from the allegations. They shouldn't have, but the Sunk Cost Fallacy wins out and things get worse.
The neat/tragic thing about this book is that I don't know if it was a purely psychological descent into …
I can repeat the mantra of, "the presence of challenging content in media is not an endorsement of said content" all I want, but goddamn if this wasn't a difficult read. There were scenes that had me physically grimacing and pulling all sorts of faces while reading with one eye closed, as if that'd spare me the mental imagery of what was happening on the page.
What we have here is a blatant repudiation of organized religion and what it looks like at its worst. A local provost of a regional Christian offshoot sect is accused of unspeakable things by some in his congregation, but the clergy rallies around their guy to protect him from the allegations. They shouldn't have, but the Sunk Cost Fallacy wins out and things get worse.
The neat/tragic thing about this book is that I don't know if it was a purely psychological descent into madness or if there were genuine supernatural factors at play tormenting an otherwise sane protagonist. But one of the supporting characters was one of the most unique spins on the Devil (maybe?) and angels (maybe??) I've ever come across in media.
My only complaint is that the book opens with email correspondences between two other characters that I thought were going to feature more prominently than they eventually did. The reader is led to believe that narrative would be bouncing between two main characters throughout, but that was dropped halfway through to focus on the provost. Felt like a strange bait-and-switch but also a missed opportunity.
Still, if you want to read something that will have you dodging the, "hey, what's that book you're reading about?" question, this will certainly fit the bill.