DANDELION by Alex Bledsoe is set in a small Tennessee town slowly withering as a Big Box sucks away the local economy and seeds the town with demonic possession (people who choose to shop there rather than support small business are literally selling their souls for low prices). The protagonists include Carlyss, a girl freed from a demon who still trails her around; Haven, her therapist; another teen, seduced into becoming a demon’s host; and Deacon Elder, a lecher and exorcist (“No, I perform deliverance — exorcism is for Catholics.”).
The results are slow, moody and very Southern as the forces of good and evil slowly line up and struggle against each other. Unfortunately the climax suddenly shifts into urban fantasy mode to the point it doesn’t feel like the same book. It includes a literal deus ex machina and a lot of set-up for Book Two. Overall it was still worth reading but Stinger did a better small-town apocalypse and Bentley Little’s The Store did a better job with a Satanic Big Box Store (and IIRC wasn’t so judgmental about the customers).
DEAREST by Jacquie Walters has new mom Flora floundering over her worries she can’t make parenting work, particularly with her husband deployed out of town. Good thing Flora’s estranged mom answered her cry for help — and isn’t it funny Flora’s childhood imaginary friend Zephie turned up at the same time? Total coincidence, of course … and so are all the strange things Flora seems to be doing to her baby, right? This was creepy, though I skimmed a lot of the paragraphs devoted to Flora’s new-mom angst. I’m not sure the plot holds together though.
EVERYDAY APOCALYPSE: The Sacred Revealed in Radiohead, the Simpsons and Other Pop Culture Icons by David Dark argues that the apocalyptic (in the original sense of revelation), by revealing the importance of this world and the people in it, counters the assumption that Christianity is all about saving our souls in the afterlife. Dark’s dissection of The Simpsons, Flannery O’Conner and Coen Brothers films (he cites Barton Fink for the gulf between the protagonist’s supposed love of the common man and his complete lack of interest when he meets one) is frequently sharp but just as frequently slides into the pretensions Pooh Perplex mocked so well. Interesting enough I may have some thoughts down the road, though probably nothing deep enough to share here.
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