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Revelator is brilliant historical folk horror/dark fantasy on two time tracks. In 1933, nine-year-old Stella goes to live with her grandmother Motty and join the generations of Birch women: girls and women who commune with the God in the Mountain, aka Ghostdaddy. In 1948, Stella is a bootlegger who wants nothing to do with the God in the Mountain or the weird cult around it, but gets drawn back in when she hears that a new girl, Sunny, has gone to live with Motty... and Ghostdaddy.
Only women can enter the cave where Ghostdaddy lives and come out alive, but the women have men in their lives - some supportive without really understanding, and some who are in the cult of men who write down and interpret the women's revelations from the God in the Mountain. The cult is essential to the plot and a sharp commentary on how women in religion can be venerated without holding any real power, their words used and twisted and profited off by men.
The bootlegging aspects of the story are convincing and sometimes hilarious. (Stella has trouble finding decent help.) There's a solid cast of compelling, often morally gray, sometimes very likable, always vivid set of characters. But mostly, I loved Stella, the previous and subsequent Birch women, and the God in the Mountain.
The book has a fantastic narrative voice, a very atmospheric setting and culture, and one of the best monsters I've ever encountered.
Content notes: contains complicated, world-specific, well-handled issues of child abuse, cults, and consent. Violence. Period-typical racism and sexism (from characters, not the author). Deaths of pigs, deer, and mice.
The book is extremely well-plotted, with layers of revelations that widen the world and increase your understanding of the characters and their motivations. And that is all I can say about that or anything else without spoilers.
( Read more... )
The audiobook version has an excellent narrator.
Only women can enter the cave where Ghostdaddy lives and come out alive, but the women have men in their lives - some supportive without really understanding, and some who are in the cult of men who write down and interpret the women's revelations from the God in the Mountain. The cult is essential to the plot and a sharp commentary on how women in religion can be venerated without holding any real power, their words used and twisted and profited off by men.
The bootlegging aspects of the story are convincing and sometimes hilarious. (Stella has trouble finding decent help.) There's a solid cast of compelling, often morally gray, sometimes very likable, always vivid set of characters. But mostly, I loved Stella, the previous and subsequent Birch women, and the God in the Mountain.
The book has a fantastic narrative voice, a very atmospheric setting and culture, and one of the best monsters I've ever encountered.
Content notes: contains complicated, world-specific, well-handled issues of child abuse, cults, and consent. Violence. Period-typical racism and sexism (from characters, not the author). Deaths of pigs, deer, and mice.
The book is extremely well-plotted, with layers of revelations that widen the world and increase your understanding of the characters and their motivations. And that is all I can say about that or anything else without spoilers.
( Read more... )
The audiobook version has an excellent narrator.
