Overview:
A novel about "God, sex, and farming" might not seem the most obvious of combinations, nor the most enticing of subjects, but American-born playwright Peggy Riley's first novel, Amity & Sorrow, is a story of a mother's attempt to save her daughters from the fundamentalist polygamous cult run by her husband Zachariah, a self‑appointed messiah.
The novel begins with a car crash. After four days of driving across the country, Amaranth, dog-tired and jumpy, and her daughters, 12-year-old Amity and her older sister Sorrow, find themselves in dusty Oklahoma solely reliant on the kindness of the stranger who finds their wreck, Bradley, a rape farmer fighting his own battles of survival.
Married to Zachariah at 17, the workings of the wider world still lie in Amaranth like a muscle memory, but their isolated upbringing is all her children know. Amity's increasingly inquiring and questioning mind throws off some of the shackles of her past, but Sorrow, still her father's most devoted follower, is aflame with prophecies of the Rapture and condemnation of her mother's sinful flight.
Amaranth was one of 50 wives, "each wedding like a thread, sewing her down to him and to all of them", the dream of a utopia of "a family of women who had no one". Her faith was built on the conviction that they were all "building something" together, but she isn't so brainwashed that she doesn't know that there are laws and rules about fathers and daughters older than those governing their community: Sorrow leaves the commune with a dark secret growing in her belly.
As in Emma Donoghue's Room, the juxtaposition between guileless protagonist who sees the world anew and the reality of their position as the victim of an evil perpetrator is creepily well rendered. "Family couldn't hurt you, no matter what they did," thinks Amity in all innocence as she witnesses her father and sister's "secret prayer". Love can lead to both grand and terrible things. "The best of families are made by choice and made from scratch," but so are the worst.
"AMITY & SORROW, grace and hope, honor and innocence, bliss and deliverance-all of this from one beautifully nuanced story about the nature of family and the power of faith. I savored every word."—Lori Lansens, author of The Girls
"A beautiful and terrifying book. Peggy Riley tells a complex and enthralling tale of family love and religious belief with uncommon wisdom, grace, and skill."—Sigrid Nunez, author of The Last of Her Kind
"Fierce and disturbing.... Riley's debut novel is a harsh but compassionate look at nature vs. nurture through the lens of a polygamous cult."—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)
"[An] accomplished, harrowing debut.... Riley's descriptive prose is rich in metaphor.... [and] the haunting literary drama simmers to a boil as it deftly navigates issues of family, faith, community, and redemption."—Ann Kelley, Booklist (Starred Review)
"A literary page-turner.... Her writing is clear, crisp, chilling..."—Reader's Digest
"Fierce and disturbing.... A harsh but compassionate look at nature vs. nurture."—The Washington Examiner
"Gripping.... a must-read for book lovers."—Ladies Home Journal
"A powerful book about hope and redemption, as well as the perils of unquestioned belief and obedience."—SheKnows.com
"[A] shimmering first novel.... This delicately stitched, finely patterned and poetic novel suggests there is a tipping point at which human resilience disappears.... Riley has a gift for metaphor that gives this novel loft, and a rhythmic way of swinging from present to past."—Dylan Landis, New York Times Book Review
"An accomplished debut novel.... The prose moves easily between past and future, between mother and daughter. Riley possesses a remarkable ability to prettily describe disturbing events; it's abrasive, yet compelling. She examines the complexities of families and the need to belong, how we lie best when we lie to ourselves (well said, Stephen King), and the ability to adapt."—Rory O'Connor, Examiner.com
"Tense, compelling.... [and] tightly constructed.... Riley constantly surprises the reader with strangely apt metaphors.... The subject matter could easily lend itself to melodrama, but Riley doesn't fall into it. Even the most shocking and violent scenes don't exploit the suffering of the characters; they reveal the complicated reasons for their behavior. Riley strips her story to an almost mythic essence without losing track of the details that ground it in a specific time and place. A sense of imminent danger coexists with an awareness of the possibility of healing, and the tension between horror and hope makes the novel hard to put down."—Margaret Quamme, Columbus Dispatch
"Riley writes with a quiet lyricism.... the relationships [Amaranth and Amity] build there are genuinely moving."—John Williams, New York Times
"Hooks readers from its riveting opening.... What makes AMITY & SORROW so fascinating is Riley's compassionate portrayal of these women...each emotion is captured exquisitely. This novel is not sensationalist, but rather realistic and frightening as it captures the horrors of real-life cults."—Megan Fishmann, Bookpage
"In this accomplished, harrowing debut, Amaranth flees her polygamist community with her two teenage daughters, Amity and Sorrow, only to crash her car four days later in the Oklahoma panhandle. Chapters alternate between the present and the past, which reveals communal life with 50 wives (Amaranth is the first) and their husband, Zachariah. Here, arbitrary rules are made in the name of God, and women are given skills for Armageddon and taught to embrace the end of the world. Two events precipitate the flight: a fire in the temple and the discovery that Zachariah has been molesting his daughter, Sorrow, convincing her he is God and that, together, they can make Jesus. In the present, Amaranth comes to view farmer Bradley, owner of the farm where they crashed, as a chance to start over, but damaged Sorrow, who reads oracles in a blue pottery shard, remains steadfastly tied to her beliefs and community. Twelve-year-old Amity, meanwhile, hopes to heal her older sister. Award-winning playwright Riley’s descriptive prose is rich in metaphor, and each of her three nuanced main characters are bound in different ways to the overarching theme of the novel: all journeys are made in faith. Owing a debt of gratitude to Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which Riley acknowledges, this story is slow to build, but the haunting literary drama simmers to a boil as it deftly navigates issues of family, faith, community, and redemption." --Ann Kelley
ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!
And Blessed Are The Ones Who Care For Their
Fellow Men!
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