cahn

4/5 - A lush, gorgeously written folk-horror book written in two time periods (in alternating chapters) which follow Stella, the main character. The first time period is the 1930's, where Stella is a child being left with her grandmother Motty, and she gradually becomes more and more immersed in her family's cult of the God of the Mountain. The second time period is Stella in the 50's or 60's, as a grown woman who has left her family behind, after what appear to be some traumatic experiences, and is now a successful professional bootlegger.

This is one of those books where I feel like I don't want to say any more about it for fear of ruining the book. It is a horror book, so be warned that there's some rather disturbing imagery, but in the end I felt it all came across less as horrific than as elegiac, perhaps, or tragic. I also thought Gregory did a masterful job of pushing through just enough information that I was able to see about half the plot coming (the half that he intended me to see), and had no idea about the other half, which I just really really admire. And the number of things that didn't quite make sense that made sense after I read the whole book was... really neat.

I also really adored Gregory's construction of the cult of the God of the Mountain, the way that the additional "scriptures" are understood, and how the members of it blithely consider everything they do as totally consistent with mainstream Christianity (it is... not really consistent with mainstream Christianity).

scioscribe made a comment on

rachelmanija's post (scroll down the tag, I wanted to give it to you without spoilers) about how it was sort of an amendment/addition to Christianity, and I realized that a lot of what felt so real to me is that it rang very true to my experience with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. (Members of my church will insist to you until the cows come home that they are absolutely Christians, which is true in the sense that we believe in Christ and the Bible [as far as it is translated correctly], but there's um a lot... more there, and a lot of assertions that it all makes total sense and is all totally Biblically/religiously justified, with a similar feel to Gregory's characters' assertions.) I was utterly unsurprised, looking up Gregory's bio, that he had lived in SLC for a while.

The ending is ambiguous, but could be read as hopeful depending on your viewpoint. (I read it as hopeful). But I really want to know what happens next now!!

Gosh, this was such a good book!