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Summary
Summary
It is the world's oldest tale: the story of Eve, her husband, Adam, and the tragedy that would overcome her sons…. In this luminous debut novel, Elissa Elliott puts a powerful twist on biblical narrative, boldly reimagining Eve's journey. At once intimate and universal, timely and timeless, this unique work of fiction blends biblical tradition with recorded history and dazzling storytelling. And as it does, Eve comes to life in a way religion and myth have never allowed--in a novel that explores the very essence of love, motherhood, faith, and humanity. In their world they are alone…a family haunted by banishment, struggling for survival in a harsh new land. A woman who has borne and buried children, Eve sees danger shadowing those she loves, while her husband drifts further and further from the man he was in the Garden, blinded by his need to rebuild a life outside of Eden. One daughter, alluring, self-absorbed Naava, turns away from their beliefs. Another, crippled, ever-faithful Aya, harbors a fateful secret, while brothers Cain and Abel become adversaries, and Dara, the youngest, is chosen for a fate of her own. In one hot, violent summer, by the shores of the muddy Euphrates, strangers arrive on their land. New gods challenge their own. And for Eve, a time of reckoning is at hand. The woman who once tasted the forbidden fruit of paradise sees her family unraveling--as brother turns on brother, culminating in a confrontation that will have far-reaching consequences for them all. From a woman's first awakening to a mother's innermost hopes and fears, from moments of exquisite tenderness to a climax of shocking violence,Evetakes us on a breathtaking journey of the imagination. A novel that has it all--romantic love, lust, cruelty, heroism, envy, sacrifice, murder--Eveis a work of mesmerizing literary invention by a singular new voice in fiction. From the Hardcover edition.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Elliott's disjointed narrative recounts the story of the Judeo-Christian tradition's first family from the creation of Adam to the murder of Abel, with an iconoclastic twist-the events are seen through the eyes of Eve and her daughters. While most of the characters lack depth, the story still manages a compelling interpretation, and the audio production improves upon the original text. With three different narrators performing the roles of Eve and her daughters, the production adds nuanced tones and more distinct personalities. From the somber and saddened Eve to the recalcitrant and scheming Naava and the optimistic and endearing Dara, the narrators enrich these points of view with a range of vocal shifts and cues that move characters beyond Elliott's superficiality. A Delacorte hardcover (Reviews, Nov. 10). (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Dueling deities, and a first family distressingly familiar in its dysfunction, enliven newcomer Elliott's highly original look at Original Sin. Eve and Adam are happily ensconced in the Garden, despite occasional spats about who came first. But after Eve, with Adam's passive-aggressive collaboration, takes sexy Lucifer's cue to nosh on forbidden fruit, GodElohimreluctantly ejects them. Years later, after much hardship, Eve and Adam have founded a thriving compound, complete with courtyard, dates, figs, grapes, beer, bread and flocks of sheep and goats. Their childrenEve and her daughters narrateeach have a role: Abel herds animals, Cain farms, lovely daughter Naava spins and weaves, youngest daughter Dara molds clay, etc. Although Adam tries to perpetuate the worship of Elohim, Cain venerates the gods of a neighboring city, particularly Inanna, a Sumerian mother/fertility goddess. (Elliott's avowedly fanciful world conflates the Bronze Age and the late Stone Age.) Nubile Naava has seduced Cain and cajoled him into introducing her to this teeming primordial metropolis of temples, marketplaces and kohl-lidded women sporting tattoos, piercings and hennaed hair. Resentful that Dara babysits for the harem of the city's prince, Naava sets her sights on the prince himselfa young man as sultry and beguiling as the persona Lucifer adopted to co-opt Eve. When Naava, costumed as Inanna, marries the prince, Cain, enraged, foments a riot and Eve's family must flee the city. But strife follows them home as Cain and Abel's lifelong sibling rivalry ends in murder. Exotic setting aside, this could be any contemporary family plagued by a manic-depressive son, a sulky teenager and a father who is shockingly deficient in the wisdom expected of a First Progenitor. Perennially pregnant, Eve can't do much except whine inwardly about her past errors and the family's present turmoil. An imaginative and deeply felt debut in which the First Parents' flaws make us wonder why they ever thought they had a snowball's chance in Eden. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
The biblical story of Adam and Eve has fascinated people for centuries. Elliott twists this story and refashions an intimate account of this age-old tale, retelling it through the perspective of the first woman and her daughters. Putting a definite female spin on the familiar saga, the author manages to reinvigorate the temptation, the banishment from the Garden of Eden, and the Cain and Abel fratricide. Still, readers expecting a mere retelling of Old Testament chestnuts are in for a pleasant surprise, as the narrative moves well beyond that timeworn terrain. Elliott manages to conjure up an unexpectedly detailed account of a beautiful but often-brutal ancient world while painting the portrait of an extended family unit struggling to carve out a viable existence in the face of seemingly insurmountable internal and external obstacles. Readers who loved Anita Diamant's The Red Tent (1997) will welcome this fresh addition to the biblical-fiction genre.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2009 Booklist
Library Journal Review
This ambitious and resonant first novel imagines Eve as she is created from Adam, is expelled from the Garden, and loses one son at the hand of another. With her lyrical writing style, Elliott brings a fully flawed and human Eve to life. Listeners may be surprised to relate to Eve as she struggles with the enduring problems of maintaining a marriage and rearing children. Three talented narrators-Sandra Burr, Tanya Eby Sirois, and Ellen Grafton-give voice to Eve and her daughters. Recommended for public libraries with a Christian fiction readership and/or interest in literary fiction. [The Delacorte hc received a starred review, LJ 1/09.-Ed.]-Carly Wiggins, Allen Cty. P.L., Fort Wayne, IN (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Eve I came upon my son's body by the river. The morning was no hotter or drier than usual, but as I crossed the plains between the house and the river, the wind kicked up the dust clouds, and I had to hold my robe over my nose. Dust clung to my wet face and marked the crooked trails of my tears. Behind me, the sky was the color of lettuce. The sand chafed my swollen feet, and my groin ached with the pains of Elazar's birth--was it just last evening I had borne him?--and my heart, oh, my heart's deep sorrow was for the travesty Cain had committed, then confessed to me like a blubbering child. The body was not hard to find. The flies and vultures led me to him, fallen under the date palms, alongside the marshy river. His face was unrecognizable; Cain had seen to that. I don't remember if I was sad or grieving just then. I was more astonished than anything. I had seen animals killed, their throats slashed and their viscera splayed out on the ground, and certainly there were my babies who were lost. But nothing prepared me for the sight of Abel, my precious son, as still as a rock, his head bloodied and his neck arched back, stiff, at an unnatural angle. His eyes--I realize now that it was a miracle they had not yet been pecked out!--once full of his vigor and brooding and planning, were empty. They said nothing to me. Of course, Abel had said little to me ever since he took to the fields to tend his goats and sheep, but that is no matter. He was still my favorite. Is a mother permitted to say such things about her children? I fell to my knees and threw my body over his. I lifted his head, cold and broken, to my breast, and cradled him there, as I had done so often when he was a baby. Fresh tears refused to come, which was strange. It was as though I had been thrown out of the Garden once again, rejected and abandoned, and, as only Adam can testify, they flowed like a river then. And where was Adam, my husband? Did he not care about our son, the one kissed by Elohim for his magnificent sacrifice? Or had Adam's deafness prevented him from hearing my anguished cries when Cain told me what he had done? Softly, I sang the Garden song into my dead son's ear. I knew he would hear it, wherever he had gone off to. He had been the only one to understand its message and allure. Abel's flesh was cold and clammy, and all I could remember was the vision of loveliness he was as a child--soft chubby skin folds and eyes only for me. He was the first to bring me gifts--poppies and ranunculus and clover, discarded feathers, and pebbles worn smooth by the river and carried down from the mountains. Cain would not have thought of it. He was too busy traipsing after his father--digging, planting, terracing, and experimenting with anything green. What sorrow there is in having children! At first, they tickle your heartstrings. They linger for your words, clutch at your skirts, feed on your breath, and then one day they lurch to the edge of the nest and flutter out. They never return, and the empty space yawns impatiently, demanding more. It is a never-ending ache, one that I continued to fill as long as I was able. The vultures hissed at me and made loud chuffing noises. They spread their mighty wings and danced about. "Get!" I shouted, half rising and waving my arms. They did not budge. Where was my Abel? Where had he gone? Was he wandering somewhere, looking for his mother? I wondered if he would weep at not finding me. I remembered Elohim's words to Adam and me, "For you are dust, and to dust you shall return," but still, I did not believe it, did not want to believe it. What good were our lives if, in the end, we simply returned to earthly particles? To make sense of this tragedy, I shall have to go back to the beginning of that hot summer, preceded by the spring harvest and sheep plucking, when our family's Excerpted from Eve: A Novel of the First Woman by Elissa Elliot All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
