The Living god

<p><strong style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)><em>The Living god</em> by Sam Heaps is a temporal wake of trauma that refuses to relocate. </strong></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Told over 24 hours outside Whitehall Montana </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Living god</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> follows baby the young lover of aging prophetess Elaina and Jesse the father of Elaina's toddler messiah as they struggle in exile after a catastrophe in their religious community. When baby miscarries Jesse's child their futures are thrown into turmoil forcing the couple to face the violent desires that have motivated their lives. Its core question-</span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>How can a community be something other than a unit of exclusion?</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>-is</span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> </em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>both call and echo.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Thematically linked to </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Women Talking</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> by Miriam Toews and stylistically reminiscent of Christine Schutt's </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>Nightwork</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Living god</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> embodies what literature must do if it is meant to change us-ask us to reframe our relationship to ourselves and the broken belief systems that no longer serve us.</span></p><p></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)></span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Living god</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> is a beautifully brutal story about loss-of faith love and family-but it's also a novel about the very nature of storytelling and the ways language itself fails us. Sam Heaps is a stunning tremendous talent and this book is propulsive gut-wrenching tender and wise.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>-Kimberly King Parsons author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>We Were the Universe</em></p><p></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Living god</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> has the quality of a voice from the grave or a story told through a spirit board. It features a small set of characters-the leader the seeker and the lost-whose lives interlock forming a specifically American picture of spiritual richness and destitution. In crisp often sumptuous prose Sam Heaps moves us through 24 hours in the life of 'baby' a lost soul navigating several intense relationships from the margins. </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>The Living god</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)> establishes Heaps as a serious writer and SARKA as a press to watch for releases in the future.</span></p><p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>-Ben Fama author of </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1); background-color: rgba(0 0 0 0)>If I Close My Eyes</em></p>