Eden Springs
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- 16,99 €
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- 16,99 €
Publisher Description
In 1903, a preacher named Benjamin Purnell and five followers founded a colony called the House of David in Benton Harbor, Michigan, where they prepared for eternal life by creating a heaven on earth. Housed in rambling mansions and surrounded by lush orchards and vineyards, the colony added a thousand followers to its fold within a few years, along with a zoo, extensive gardens, and an amusement park. The sprawling complex, called Eden Springs, was a major tourist attraction of the Midwest. The colonists, who were drawn from far and wide by the magnetic "King Ben," were told to keep their bodies pure by not cutting their hair, eating meat, or engaging in sexual relations. Yet accounts of life within the colony do not reflect such an austere atmosphere, as the handsome, charming founder is described as loving music, dancing, a good joke, and in particular, the company of his attractive female followers. In Eden Springs, award-winning Michigan author Laura Kasischke imagines life inside the House of David, in chapters framed by real newspaper clippings, legal documents, and accounts of former colonists. Told from the perspective of the young women who were closest to Benjamin Purnell, the novella follows a growing scandal within the colony’s walls. A gravedigger has seen something suspicious in a recently buried casket, a loyal assistant to Benjamin is plotting a cover-up, talk is swirling about unmarried girls having babies, and a rebellious girl named Lena is ready to tell the truth. In flashbacks and first-person narrative mixed with historical artifacts, Kasischke leads readers through the unraveling mystery in a lyrical patchwork as enticing and satisfying as the story itself.Eden Springs lets readers inside the enchanting and eerie House of David, with an intimate look at its hedonistic highs and eventual collapse. This novella will appeal to all readers of fiction, as well as those with an interest in Michigan history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A beautifully polished, evocative tale by poet, novelist, and Guggenheim fellow Kasischke (In a Perfect World) pursues an early 20th-century utopian community in Benton Harbor, Mich., and its eventual derailment. The author depicts the evolution of the colony, called the House of David, founded in 1903 by Benjamin Purnell, a charismatic young man who converts followers especially young women with his visionary preaching and persuades them to await the end of the world at the cluster of mansions they build amid the luxuriant orchards of Benton Harbor. Dressed in white and prohibited from cutting their hair, Benjamin's followers come from all over the world, but by April 1923, a suspicious death has occurred at the colony, and King Benjamin and his assistant former teacher turned lover Cora Moon try to cover it up. One jealous anointed favorite, the teenaged Lena McFarlane, decides to blow the whistle on King Benjamin's seductions of his beautiful angels, leading to a mad rush to smother a simmering scandal. Kasischke explores the sensuous message of this paradisiacal cult, depicting gorgeously a web of irresistible impressions taken as God's truth.