Eden Mine
A Novel
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4.8 • 5 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Christianity Today Book Award, Fiction
In Eden Mine, the award-winning author of Black River examines the aftershocks of an act of domestic terrorism rooted in a small Montana town on the brink of abandonment, as it tears apart a family, tests the faith of a pastor and the loyalty of a sister, and mines the deep rifts that come when the reach of the government clashes with individual freedom
If I stay here, Jo, I know you could find me. If you wanted to, you could find me.
For generations, the Fabers have lived near Eden Mine, scraping by to keep ahold of their family's piece of Montana. Jo and her brother, Samuel, will be the last. Despite a long battle, their property has been seized by the state through eminent domain—something Samuel deems a government theft.
As Jo packs, she hears news of a bombing. Samuel went off to find work in Wyoming that morning, but soon enough, it's clear that he's not gone but missing, last seen by a security camera near the district courthouse?now a crime scene?in Elk Fork. And the nine-year-old daughter of a pastor at a nearby church lies in critical condition.
Can the person Jo loves and trusts most have done this terrible thing? Can she have missed the signs? The last time their family met violence, Jo lost her ability to walk. Samuel took care of her, outfitted their barn with special rigging so she could still ride their mule. What secrets has he been keeping? As Jo watches the pastor fight for his daughter, watches the authorities hunt down a criminal, she wrestles with an impossible choice: Must she tell them where Samuel might be? Must she choose between loyalty and justice? Between the brother she knows and the man he has become?
A timely story of the tensions splintering families and communities all over this country, S.M. Hulse's Eden Mine is also a steady-eyed gaze into the ideals of the West and the legacies of violence, a moving account of faith in the face of evil, and a heartrending reckoning of the terrible choices we make for the ones we love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hulse (Black River) revisits the American West with a taut, poignant tale of a personal vendetta turned act of domestic terror. Lone wolf bomber Samuel Faber disappears after blowing up a courthouse in Elk Fork, Mont., and unintentionally injuring a dozen people in a church across the street. His sister, Jo, a paraplegic artist, refuses to cooperate with the authorities, even after befriending a pastor named Asa Truth, whose daughter was gravely injured in the blast. The two bond in their mutual desire to retain some semblance of faith, Asa in God and Jo, less understandably, in Samuel. Hulse labors to blur the lines between good and evil, drawing out Jo and Samuel's backstory their father's death in a mine collapse, their mother's violent murder, the state government's imminent seizure of the property to highlight the past's indelible marks on the present. As the sheriff leads a manhunt for Samuel, Hulse shares the fugitive bomber's point of view, adding to a chorus of voices grappling with questions of loyalty, faith, injustice, and redemption. Despite stock characterizations and plotting, the dramatic conclusion kicks like a mule, a testament to Hulse's storytelling acumen. This country noir has its moments.
