The Shelter Cycle
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1.0 • 1 Rating
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Two people raised in an end-times sect reunite years later: “A stunning novel about faith and disillusionment and the lingering power of the past.” —Tom Perrotta, New York Times bestselling author of The Leftovers
Written by a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist and inspired by true events, The Shelter Cycle tells the story of two children, Francine and Colville, who grew up in the Church Universal and Triumphant, a religion that predicted the world could end in the late 1980s. While their parents built underground shelters to withstand the impending Soviet missile strike, Francine and Colville played in the Montana wilderness, where invisible spirits watched over them. When the prophesied apocalypse did not occur, the sect’s members resurfaced and the children were forced to grow up in a world they believed might no longer exist.
Twenty years later, Francine and Colville are reunited while searching for an abducted girl in Idaho. Haunted by memories and inculcated beliefs, they must confront the Church’s teachings. If all the things they were raised to believe were misguided, why then do they suddenly feel so true?
“Eerie [and] engrossing.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“A metaphysically haunting, shape-shifting novel that keeps the reader off balance and can’t be fully appreciated until its climax.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rock (My Abandonment) further demonstrates his literary finesse with this intense novel about two people who grew up with a spiritual clan bracing for the apocalypse. The story's premise is all the more eerie for being based on the real Church Universal and Triumphant, which in the late 1980s urged its members to build underground shelters in preparation for a Soviet missile strike. Rock's engrossing narrative follows former Church member Francine, who finds herself unmoored when childhood friend Colville Young, also a former Church member, resurfaces in Boise, Idaho. A young girl has gone missing and Francine, very pregnant, and her husband Wells join in the search. Wells is suspicious of Colville, and the quick rekindling of Francine and Colville's relationship gives the story an unnerving air. Prefacing some chapters are Francine's written memoirs of the Church, her actions, and those of other members, including Colville, dictated by a hovering spirit called the Messenger. Wells finds these pages, which only exacerbate his anxiety once Francine, near her due date, vanishes, intent on revisiting the shelter where she'd spent her youth. Steeped in foreboding grimness, the real beauty in Rock's narrative lies not in the carefully revealed secrets, but in the curious humanity within each of them.
