Revelator

June 14, 2021
Shirley Jackson Award winner Gregory (We Are All Completely Fine) spins an addictive tale of historical horror, set alternately in 1936 and 1948 in Tennessee’s Smoky Mountains, where bootlegger Stella Wallace communes with Ghostdaddy, “the God in the Mountain.” Stella comes from a line of Birch women who were deemed Revelators due to their ability to communicate with this god. But after she discovers the god’s true intentions and learns how the Revelators before her have died, she runs away from home, determined not to meet the same fate. Twelve years later, her grandmother, Motty, is found dead, and Stella must return to finish what she started as a child and fulfill her family’s destiny. The mystery surrounding Ghostdaddy is slow to build and initially disorienting, but as the narrative toggles between Stella’s childhood and her present day, and the truth about Stella’s family and their folk religion unfolds, Gregory ratches up the tension in stunning prose, and the book goes from frustratingly opaque to un-put-downable. Readers who stick with this are in for a thrilling ride. Agent: Seth Fishman, the Gernert Company.

July 23, 2021

World Fantasy Award and Shirley Jackson Award winner Gregory (We Are All Completely Fine) is back with a new thriller set in the backwoods of Tennessee in the 1930s. There are time jumps back and forward as the narrators of each chapter reveal different parts of the story, about a family's painful dynamics and a secret that festers inside them for years. The protagonist, Stella, is gritty and takes no guff but also has a Jackson-esque mystery that will make readers question who their sympathies should go to. The family is run through with undercurrents of oppressive Christianity and patriarchy, aimed mostly at Stella and her women relatives who are viewed as "heathens." Each of them writes a diary (titled like books of the Bible) that enhances the cryptic family mysteries, involving dark caves, false prophets, and men who rewrite women's narratives. VERDICT This noir thriller with horror elements strongly calls to mind the work of Hank Early crossed with Cormac McCarthy. It is a slow burn that takes its time to unfurl but makes a lasting impression. Fans of the first and third seasons of the television series True Detective will also enjoy this dark, somber tale with all of its sinister elements.--Anita Siraki, Toronto

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

July 21, 2021
Many families are religious, but what if your family was the religion? Stella Birch Wallace was raised in Cades Cove, Tennessee, by her grandmother Motty, one in a line of female Revelators able to speak with the God of the Mountain. Surrounded by Baptists, the family religion is a peculiarly insular institution built on the god's promise: an earthly immortality in "one body, ever blooming." This idea is pushed by Stella's Uncle Hendrick, whose written commentary is all that exists of the Birch womens' interactions with the god. Gregory skillfully unfurls Stella's doubt that Hendrick truly understands their revelations while bouncing between her Depression-era childhood and her postwar return to the family farm after Motty's death. Hendrick is obsessed with welcoming the god from its cave into the larger world, and will stop at nothing to ensure he's there when it happens . . . including using vulnerable young Sunny, the next Revelator. An eerie and otherworldly tale laced with moonshine, Revelator questions the bonds of kin and challenges the ideas of power and divinity. A darkly intoxicating chiller.

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A bootlegger tries to kill her family's god in this gripping horror novel. As a teenager during the Great Depression, Stella Wallace couldn't wait to escape the Smoky Mountain valley where she was raised by her grandmother, Motty. Her fantasy of escaping is understandable--she comes from a family that worships their own god, a ghostly apparition called Ghostdaddy who lives in a mountain. Stella meets the god for the first time when she's 9 and is struck with a sense of "wonder so deep it was almost adoration"--but the charm of the god wears off as she realizes it's more sinister than she first thought. Fifteen years later, Stella, now a brash bootlegger working in nearby Alcoa, Tennessee, gets word that Motty has died, and her thoughts immediately turn to Sunny, her 10-year-old cousin. Stella's scared that Sunny will be adopted by Motty's scheming brother, Hendrick, and that he'll try to get the young girl to commune with the god the way that Stella once did, all in service of his Church of the God in the Mountain. Stella wants to rescue Sunny and kill the sinister god, but Hendrick will stop at nothing to gain control of the girl. Gregory's novel is packed to the gills with action and suspense, and he has an enviable skill for characterization--the reader feels a connection with Stella, a complex woman who "had learned to do a passable impersonation of a normal person," and even, at times, with the irascible Motty. The Smoky Mountains of Tennessee become a character as well, and Gregory writes about them beautifully. This is an excellent work of horror, perfectly structured and dark as a Tennessee night. Smart, original, and scary as hell.

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