First published 2010
Paul, a Vietnam veteran married to wealthy Liz, rents a carpenter gothic house from geologist McCandless. From this base, Paul becomes media consultant to Reverend Ude, an evangelist planning a crusade that serves a mining company's interests in Africa. The company wants to exploit an ore discovery at Ude's mission site. Paul botches the arrangement while Liz grows distant from their volatile marriage. She begins an affair with their landlord McCandless as Paul's schemes unravel. Violence erupts with a fire and an assassination attempt. Ude calls his followers to arms with apocalyptic fervor. The marriage disintegrates amid the chaos of religious manipulation, corporate greed, and personal betrayal. Gaddis tells this story through rapid dialogue that captures America's packaged corruption and simmering violence.
Genres: literary-fiction, american-fiction, 20th-century, contemporary
Vibes: atmospheric, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: disintegrating-marriage, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Africa, Carpenter's Gothic
Period: Vietnam War
262 pages · Paperback · Atlantic Books
Content warnings: violence