I Read Books: Gloria Patri

 

Gloria Patri

In the opening chapter Naomi Becker wakes to discover her barn is on fire. She takes her baby Jonathan and flees.

How we ended up here is the matter of the novel. We learn that the year before in 2012, Solomon Becker, Naomi’s brother, killed sixteen people and wounded twenty three more in a mass shooting in Seattle before being killed himself. On the same day Richard, her father dies. Naomi and her mother Ruth have to deal with both, heading for Seattle on a road trip at the invitation of an FBI agent.

The shooting causes concern for a group up in the mountains, House CORE. A militia of sorts, led by Big Boy, Amos Brainerd, a former soldier. Amongst them is Andrew Cook, who recruited Solomon to the group.

Solomon and Naomi were twins, or triplets, the third Noah having been stillborn. Brought up by their parents Richard and Ruth, they were homeschooled on a farm. Richard led them in worship, believing the outside world to be sinful, and the government worst of all, though they were kept by Ruth’s government job. They met Andrew when he, part of the homeschooling group, catches chicken pox and they go over so that Solomon and Naomi catch it. Later Andrew and his mother move in.

When he turns eighteen Andrew joins the army and goes to Iraq. Solomon leaves home, gets caught up in sovereign citizen conspiracy ideas, then deeper into mystical connections with the universe. In the army Andrew learns that everything is messed up, the officers, the government, the country. When he gets out Big Boy offers him books, and they are the classic set of White Supremacist texts. When the socialist Muslim is elected president it becomes clear to Big Boy that a war is coming, and he sets up House CORE.

This is a novel about being brought up outside the mainstream, because it’s corrupt, and then going deeper down the conspiracy well. Into violent, white supremacist fantasies. Because the America they believe in is not only gone, but never existed, they’re adrift, their best instincts turn to dark ends.

It’s also a novel about family, and coming of age, and death and burial. And about faith and how it can be taken for granted, and twisted and not sustain.

And on top of the important, maybe even necessary ideas, it’s a pretty good thriller.

Read This: A powerful, timely, yet unfortunately timeless book about violent conspiracy and those who grow up in the penumbra of these ideas
Don’t Read This: We’re just living through it
Available From Malarkey Books: Who provided me with a review copy