Act of God: A Novel, by Jill Ciment
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Act of God: A Novel, by Jill Ciment
Ebook Download : Act of God: A Novel, by Jill Ciment
Jill Ciment’s books have been hailed as “stunning,” “powerful,” and “provocative.” Alice Sebold has called her works “beautifully written.” Now the author of Heroic Measures (“Smart and funny and completely surprising . . . I loved every page.” —Ann Patchett; “Brave, generous, nearly perfect.” —Los Angeles Times) has given us a contemporary noir novel that starts out a comedy of errors and turns darker at every hairpin turn. It’s the summer of 2015, Brooklyn. The city is sweltering from another record-breaking heat wave, this one accompanied by biblical rains. Edith, a recently retired legal librarian, and her identical twin sister, Kat, a feckless romantic who’s mistaken her own eccentricity for originality, discover something ominous in their hall closet: it seems to be phosphorescent, it’s a mushroom . . . and it’s sprouting from their wall. Upstairs, their landlady, Vida Cebu, a Shakespearian actress far more famous for her TV commercials for Ziberax (the first female sexual enhancement pill) than for her stage work, discovers that a petite Russian girl, a runaway au pair, has been secretly living in her guest room closet. When the police arrest the intruder, they find a second mushroom, also glowing, under the intruder’s bedding. Soon the HAZMAT squad arrives, and the four women are forced to evacuate the contaminated row house with only the clothes on their backs. As the mold infestation spreads from row house to high-rise, and frightened, bewildered New Yorkers wait out this plague (is it an act of God?) on their city and property, the four women become caught up in a centrifugal nightmare. Part horror story, part screwball comedy, Jill Ciment’s brilliant suspense novel looks at what happens when our lives—so seemingly set and ordered yet so precariously balanced—break down in the wake of calamity. It is, as well, a novel about love (familial and profound) and how it can appear from the most unlikely circumstances.
Act of God: A Novel, by Jill Ciment- Amazon Sales Rank: #928853 in Books
- Published on: 2015-03-03
- Released on: 2015-03-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.30" h x .79" w x 5.27" l, 1.25 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 192 pages
Review Ciment is as compassionate as she is amused by her characters' foibles . . . [Her] marvelous complexity as an artist is that her two final scenes mingle horror, humor, and tenderness as they lead us toward a final image that perfectly captures the damaged grandeur of the human condition. That's always her essential subject, whether she's cracking jokes about it or plumbing its sorrows--usually both at the same time. -- Wendy Smith, The Daily Beast
Praise for Jill Ciment’sACT OF GOD “A gem of a book that ultimately focuses on the best parts about the human race. I kind of love it for that.” -My Bookish Ways “Funny, scary . . . It’s human behavior that interests Ciment, and that runs the gamut from enjoyably ridiculous to surprisingly sublime in her tragicomedy of errors.” -Wendy Smith, The Daily Beast “Ciment’s book is a compact, droll farce, light-hearted and pleasurable as a chocolate truffle, yet with a nugget of hard, somewhat unpalatable truths in the center . . . Ultimately, Ciment towers forth with her own brilliant voice . . . Her interweaving plotlines are so nimbly handled that every development seems simultaneously unpredictable, yet organically predetermined. The story might sometimes appear to be a massive clockwork, but it has the astonishing intricacy of the finest Old World municipal tower clock, where astonishing figures pirouette in and out of every niche . . . Ciment has the bracing mindset of Ambrose Bierce or Mark Twain, George Alec Effinger or Tom Disch.” -Paul di Fillipo, Locus Magazine “This short novel deepens into a darker, Job-like comedy.” -Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “Ciment’s nightmare-comedy reads like an urbane spin on the Book of Job, written in the wake of Superstorm Sandy . . . An antic yet poignant study of who you become when you lose everything . . . Lively secondary characters add to the book’s zest . . . Ciment’s sense of absurdity is keen . . . Laugh-out-loud funny in its first half, the book grows more thorny and trenchant in its wit toward the end. Either way, from start to finish, it’s invigoratingly unpredictable.” -Michael Upchurch, Seattle Times “Remarkable . . . a novel that is as surprising and moving as nature itself . . . ‘Act of God’ is a work to be treasured, respected and, most of all, enjoyed — like life itself.” -Laura Farmer, Cedar Rapids Gazette “Rich, quirky characterizations, witty insights into human nature and cruel twists of fate turn the initial absurdity of the narrative into a profound, suspenseful story . . . thoroughly entertaining and unforgettable.”-Kathleen Gerard, Shelf Awareness (Starred Review) “A darkly comic jewel of a novel . . . ACT OF GOD is an act of love, one that is no less funny or endearing for the toughness with which it is bestowed.” -Jan Stuart, Boston Globe “This novel breezes along, fizzing with wit as it sails . . . Ms. Ciment’s interestingly quirky — but not cute — characters suggest human buoyancy, while her deft sentences and cleverly chosen details set a bracing pace that keeps the full force of the novel’s questions about responsibility and forgiveness in check until the last page is turned. Then readers may look back and consider what we might really mean by an act of God.” -Claire Hopley, Washington Times “In this swiftly paced, niftily written comedy turned horror novel, even the most settled lives are upended, the tiniest character flaws come back to bite, and love and redemption arrive when you least expect them.” -Amanda Lovell, More “Keenly intelligent . . . Ciment orchestrates an increasingly complicated plot with consummate skill . . . In fewer than 200 pages, Ciment has pulled off an admirable literary feat, creating a novel that moves at the speed of light, all the while urging us to pause and look inward.” -Harvey Freedenberg, BookPage “Beautiful, tightly controlled, and fascinating . . . Both the plotting and writing are very strong, and the moody, slow-burn fascination of the story makes this one a winner.” -BookRiot “In a feat of literary magic, Ciment slips an abundance of suspenseful action, incisive humor, far-ranging wisdom, and complex emotion into this inventive, caring, devour-all-at-once novel of self, family, community, and doing right.” -Booklist “Humanity, warmth and wry humor light up Ciment's noirish novel . . . This absorbing novel about a luminescent fungus affixes itself to your psyche like a spore and quickly spreads to your heart, setting everything in its wake aglow.” -Kirkus (Starred Review)
About the Author JILL CIMENT was born in Montreal, Canada. She is the author of Small Claims, a collection of short stories and novellas; the novels The Law of Falling Bodies, Teeth of the Dog, The Tattoo Artist, and Heroic Measures; and a memoir, Half a Life. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, among them a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, two New York Foundation for the Arts fellowships, the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, and a Guggenheim fellowship. Ciment is a professor at the University of Florida. She lives in Gainesville, Florida, and Brooklyn, New York.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Part OneTill Hell Freezes OverThe twins suspected it was alive, but they weren’t exactly sure if it was plant or animal. Edith, white-haired and older by seventeen minutes, went to find a flashlight while Kat, blond with white roots, knelt to take a closer look. A small phosphorescent organism, about as bright and arresting as a firefly’s glow, bloomed in the seam of the hall closet. It almost looked as if someone had chewed a piece of iridescence and stuck it, like gum, on the wall. But it wasn’t inanimate like gum; its surface was roiling as if something beneath were struggling to be born. Kat tried to call Edith back to be assured that she wasn’t imagining things, but Kat was struck dumb. A swell rose out of the glow until the head of whatever was fighting to get born pushed through, a fleshy bud, about the size of a newborn’s thumb. Kat gasped. Her breath must have disturbed the new life, or awakened it, because a puff of spores sprayed out, luminous and ephemeral as glitter. The closet housed their mother’s archives, the original letters from her advice column, the earliest dating back to the nineteen fifties, when Consultations with Dr. Mimi was first syndicated. All they needed was for spores to land on one of the file boxes and start feasting on the invaluable old papers inside. Edith shined the flashlight over Kat’s shoulder. They could now see clearly that it wasn’t a plant or an animal. It was some kind of mushroom, a fleshy speckled stalk capped by a deeply oxygenated pink head. Edith gasped. They sounded identical. “Where did it come from?” Edith’s voice quavered between stubborn disbelief and reverent horror. “How does a mushroom just start growing out of a wall, or is it growing through the wall? Oh my god, what’s behind it? You shouldn’t be so close, Kat. It may be poisonous.” She kept the light trained on it, as if the mushroom were under interrogation. They decided not to touch anything until they spoke to someone with expertise in these matters. But who would that be? Who do you call? The Health Department, Pest Control, the EPA, the CDC, the Fire Department? Should they call the super? But they both knew what Frank would do—nothing. He’d gawk at the mushroom, sympathize, light a cigarette, even though Edith asked him not to smoke around the archive, and then call their landlady, Vida Cebu. Vida was an actress who had bought the building last year, a narrow, three-story, neoclassic row house on Berry Street in Brooklyn. She had restored the warren of dwellings above Edith’s apartment into a private house again, but she could do nothing about the parlor floor. Edith had inherited their mother’s rent-controlled lease—a tenant till death. And now Kat had moved in. Edith paid two hundred dollars and twelve cents a month. While Kat peeked over Edith’s shoulder, Edith typed mushrooms, brooklyn into her computer’s search engine, but the only listings were gourmet stores selling truffles and porcinis. “Isn’t a mushroom a type of mold?” Kat asked. Big Apple Mold, Terminix, Mold Be Gone, Ecology Exterminating Service, Basement RX, Empire Disaster Restoration. Who would have guessed there were so many mold specialists in their zip code? After the tenth answering machine, the twins realized that everybody was closed for the weekend. It was two o’clock, Sunday afternoon. Edith dialed the only one with an after-hours number. “Mold Be Gone,” a woman answered. “Thank god someone’s there. We found a mushroom growing in our closet. What should we do?” “I only work for the answering service, but I’d pour bleach on it and keep your air conditioner on high. Someone will call you Monday.” The window units were already running at full tilt, and had been since the heat wave began twenty-six days ago. The temperature had broken last year’s record by two degrees. People were fainting in the streets. The first thing the twins did was rescue their mother’s archives. Sixteen heavy boxes weren’t easy to move. “It’s grown, hasn’t it?” Edith said breathlessly, staring back into the empty closet. The mushroom now stood upright and had tripled in size. Bleach might not kill it, but surely it would stunt its growth. Edith found a Clorox bottle under the kitchen sink, Kat rubber gloves in the bathroom. Before uncapping the bleach, they tied handkerchiefs around their noses and mouths. The fumes immediately saturated the tight space. Eyes smarting, Edith tipped the bottle’s spout directly over the mushroom while Kat held a large tin foil roasting pan underneath to catch the runoff. When the first drops hit, the mushroom must have sensed its fate. Its gills shrank closed. Edith kept pouring. The thick stalk started going flaccid. The pink head lost its blush. She finished the bottle. The roasting pan was now a tub of bleach. Kat set it on the floor, under the obviously dying mushroom. They watched its demise with profound relief. The more it withered and shriveled, the calmer they became. It shrank even faster than it had grown. Finally, it just hung by a tendril. “I’m going to pull it off,” Kat said. “Don’t touch it. I’ll get a knife,” Edith said. The blade barely scratched the skin before the mushroom fell into the roasting pan. They inspected the corner. The wall looked surprisingly clean, except for a pale spore print in the seam, but even that seemed superficial. They scraped it away with the point of the knife. The mushroom had only been stuck, not rooted, to the wall. They scrubbed the area three separate times, with bleach, with rubbing alcohol, with antibacterial dish soap, and finally, Edith sprayed Raid on it. Before cleaning up, Edith turned off the lights in the hall closet and shut herself inside to hunt for any luminous pinpricks of overlooked spores. Satisfied they’d eradicated all they could find, she and Kat carried out the roasting pan and dumped its contents in the gutter, including the now shriveled twist of fungus. They returned to the apartment. The closet had never looked so clean. It almost seemed as if they’d imagined the mushroom. “That was disturbing,” Edith said. “My god, it grew freakishly fast. The head was so pink and bulbous. It almost looked like a giant’s thumb had poked through the wall.” Kat waited to see if Edith would draw the obvious analogy, but she wasn’t sure if her white-haired, sixty-four-year-old sister had ever seen an erect penis. She suspected Edith was a virgin. The not knowing was an inscrutable power Edith held over her. All their lives, Kat had told Edith the most intimate details about her lovers and escapades, whereas Edith confided nothing to her. All Kat knew was that Edith, before retiring, had worked in one of those anthill corporate law firms as the head librarian and lived with their mother until she died. Had Edith had a secret lover, perhaps one of the married partners? Surely Edith had been in love once or twice? Had she ever been caressed? Kissed? When they were children, Edith and Kat looked identical. But by their early twenties, you could barely tell they were twins. Edith was stout, Kat voluptuous. Edith kept her original brown hair color; Kat changed hers as often as she fell in love. It wasn’t just the physical differences. Their identical countenances expressed two very different souls. Edith wore their features sensibly and wisely; Kat gave them sparkle and animation. But these days, sharing the same clothes, the same meals, they again looked identical. Or did they? Kat had only seen her sister naked once since she’d moved in two months ago, when she had to help Edith bathe after a bad bout of flu. Edith’s skin looked almost translucent compared to her own freckled, sun-damaged hide, but otherwise they’d aged with remarkable similarity. Sponging her likeness, all Kat could think was that this was what she would have looked like had she never allowed herself to live and be loved.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful. Not the horror story/screwball comedy it is described as, but still quite entertaining By Monica J. Kern I'm afraid this book will become a victim of its own marketing. The back cover describes it as "part horror story, part screwball comedy." It is neither. Instead, it is a thoughtful and touching meditation on the true meaning of home and family. The novel follows the interconnected stories of a handful of characters who must cope with being evacuated from their homes due to an infestation of a mysterious kind of "supermold."I ordered the book to review because I am a fan of post-apocalyptic fiction, and the blurb describing the book made me think this was going to be a PA book. The first page or two did not dispel that illusion, from the very first sentence ("The twins suspected it was alive, but they weren't exactly sure if it was plant or animal") to later lurid descriptions of thumb-sized phosphorescent protrusions blooming before their eyes and spreading spores. But those were the most sensationalist pages of the book, and the rest of the chapters focus almost not at all on the mold invasion. What we get instead is a captivating look at how a handful of diverse characters (a set of 64 year old twin sisters; a Russian au pair you most definitely would not want looking after your children; an actress whose early glory days have devolved to starring in sexual dysfunction commercials) face being uprooted and losing their earthly possessions. One of the most gratifying aspects of the novel is witnessing the evolution in the characters, some of whom start out as shallow, pretentious, or deceptive but who end up experiencing real personal growth as a result of their challenges.There are some puzzling aspects to the book: It's not obvious why the government takes the drastic steps it did so quickly, for example; and the supermold itself doesn't seem plausible. That, along with the disconnect between the first few horror-story pages and the rest of the plot, was enough for me to lower my rating a star. But it is still an enjoyable novel worth reading. Earlier I said the book was not the screwball comedy claimed on the back. That doesn't mean it is without humor, however, as there are plenty of light moments to lift the bleak mood. I particularly enjoyed the description of Gladys, displaced cat lady, and her adventures living in a van with her 17 cats. But I would classify it as dark humor, not screwball comedy. The book is a quick read (some 180 pages) and quite entertaining. And by the time you're done reading it, you've realized some important lessons about what the truly valuable things in life are. (Hint: it's not your house or your possessions.)
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Who Deserves Forgiveness? By Jill I. Shtulman Jill Ciment is the kind of writer who can grab you from the very first sentence (in this case: "The twins suspected it was alive, but they weren't exactly sure if it were plant or animal.") I loved her book The Tattoo Artist and devoured her next book, Heroic Measures. So I couldn't wait to get my hands on her newest one, Act of God.In ways, Act of God has a lot in common with Heroic Measures. In each, New Yorkers become panicked due to an outside danger (a gasoline tanker truck that become stuck in the Midtown Tunnel in Heroic Measures, a toxic phosphorescent mushroom infestation in Act of God). Both books also contain shifting points of views and characters who are striving to make sense of the craziness that has suddenly taken over their lives. These quirky, eccentric characters - a hallmark of Jill Ciment's - vaguely call to mind Anne Tyler's loveable protagonists.This book opens with twins Edith and Kat, two women in their mid-60s who are rooming in the Victorian home of their landlady, Vida Cebu, a would-be Shakespearean actress who has become notorious for her role in a female libido drug commercial. To add to the chaos, a young morality-challenged Russian girl is flopping in Vida's guest bedroom without her knowledge. When the mushroom is discovered, HAZMAT is called and all their lives are thrown into complete upheaval.As each of them muddles their way through, themes begin to emerge. In Vida's case, "She felt oddly free, as if she'd escaped. Had the house been that much of a responsibility? Why didn't she feel worse?" And in another snapshot, one of the twins is trying hard to salvage the letters of her deceased mother, a one-time grande dame of advice columnists. Gradually, the twists of their lives echo the plaintive cries of the old letters, "Will I find love again? Why did she lie to me? Am I lovable?"The slim novel raises some big questions: Who deserves forgiveness? When do we take responsibility and when do we blithely proclaim that a natural tragedy is an "act of God?" How do we build a sense of community at a time when we feel all alone? The book is compelling and page-turning - I read it in one sitting. But I couldn't help but feel as if Jill Ciment was recycling some of the themes of her previous novel. Still, I can think of far worse ways to spend a few hours than in the company of these flawed but wonderful characters.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. A quirky, delightful, noir morality tale told with affection and humor By B. Case "Act of God," by Jill Ciment, opens by introducing two 64-year-old identical twins who live together in a row house in present-day Brooklyn, New York. They awake to discover something inexplicable and frightening glowing in the dark of their hall closet. It's looks like some freakish phosphorus organism. They can actually see it growing: it's surface "roiling as if something beneath were struggling to be born." As they gaze, transfixed, a swell rises "out of the glow until the head of whatever was fighting to get born" pushes through and "a fleshy bud" appears. Still mesmerized, the twins witness the bud burst and disperse "a puff of spores...luminous and ephemeral as glitter." It doesn't take long for the two to realize that they are dealing with some type of possibly very toxic fungus.This is such a perfectly delightful beginning to this remarkable and lovely little literary book. And you learn all of that on the first page! This author makes the best out of every word and page.It's a book that captivated my heart and mind for the short few hours it took me to finish it. Most of all, I loved the four main characters, all female: Edith, the conservative, organized, responsible, legal librarian; Kat, Edith's identical twin sister and every bit Edith's opposite in looks, personality, and temperament; Vida, the two sisters' beautiful but egocentric landlady--a woman made famous by her seductive role in a commercial for the world's first female sexual enhancement pill; and Ashley (a.k.a. Anushka Sokolov), an eighteen-year-old former nanny and now homeless Russian immigrant--a girl who has been living in secret in Vida's guest room closet for over a week by the time the book begins.The book delighted me with this madcap cast of eccentric, vulnerable, but also somewhat far-fetched set of characters. I'm sure for most of us, they represent some of the very recognizable "difficult people" who we all have had to deal with at various times in our lives: the stressful overly organized and passively controlling type; the infuriating narcissist; the I-haven't-yet-grown-up-out-of-my-youthful-sociopathic-stage teenager; and the frustratingly disorganized and hopelessly irresponsible free spirit.In this short novel--actually little more than a long novella--these four characters must deal with a toxic super mold crisis that takes over New York City. We soon learn that the only way to obliterate this deadly mold is to burn everything: furniture, clothing, papers, photos, clothing...ultimately, the whole building. After that, the Hazmat teams must try, as best they can, to decontaminate the living victims with bleach baths and fungicide. Homelessness and bankruptcy soon follow.Yes, this is quite a dark plot, but in this author's hands, the tale is handled almost like a fable; also there is much emphasis on wit and black humor.Besides the characters, I adored this novel's themes. It's very much a contemporary morality story. It is about the irresponsibility of otherwise well-meaning human beings. Was the mold infestation--including the deaths and human misery caused by it--a true "act of God," as the insurance folks demand? Or were there humans involved who could and should have been held responsible for the spread? Can good people do horrible things and still be good people? If so, can they be forgiven? Is this all just a significant part of what it means to be human?The book is brilliantly well written. It is entertaining, powerful, thought provoking, and humane. I loved it from beginning to end.
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