An innovative but uneven spiritual tale.
In this debut novel, an emperor establishes a clandestine order to protect and disseminate spiritual secrets that predate the birth of Jesus.
Aram is a nomadic trader traveling through ancient Syria. Isha, his caravan’s leader, encourages him to seek out the spiritual counsel of Murduk, a “silent observer of the universe,” who paradoxically turns out to be uncommonly garrulous and eager to impart his wisdom. Murduk shares with Aram a combination of cosmological and moral teachings, the former vaguely reminiscent of Christian eschatology. Apparently, the “ancient engineers of our species” have left instructions for their return, “when time and space interact in such a way as to open the stargate again.” In addition, there will a decisive battle between the forces of good and evil, which will “drive the planet into an obscure tunnel of death and devastation.” Aram is shown how to interpret the signs—the novel is filled with diagrams that illustrate the messages—and is given an amulet that contains a hexagram within a circle apparently encrypted with spiritual knowledge. The bulk of this tale is devoted to the aftermath of Aram’s spiritual enlightenment—he becomes a great prophet, and his legacy is continued by powerful men like Roman Emperor Traianus. Emperor Constantine eventually founds the Constantine Order devoted to the perpetuation of Aram’s work, and its illustrious membership includes Attila the Hun and Leonardo da Vinci. Consta makes this order the prime mover of world history—the Crusades, the Egyptian pyramids, and King Solomon’s Temple can all be linked to the group.
The tantalizingly inventive aspect of the author’s tale is the possibility of an “inner core” of “prophetic symbols received by the prophet Aram” thousands of years before the births of Jesus and Allah. But the ambitious expanse of history covered here has a price—Consta doesn’t create authentic characters. This isn’t really a novel in the usual sense of the term but an intricate history—it reads much more like an attempt to compose scripture than a literary production. This gives the entire work a ponderous feel, and the prose only reinforces that effect. The author’s writing is often densely packed and bewilderingly vague. The passages meant to elucidate the nature of the prophetic teachings are the most turgid: “Supreme Master, created from the same blood of Aram and the eternal perseverance and persistence of the crossed axis of the celestial globe and the sacred, unified will and wisdom of God, which humbly point us to the sacred points of the lights designated from our creators, ascend to the top of this temple and point us with the sacred sword to the right Blazing Star.” While Consta’s work is reminiscent of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, it fails to fully develop the intriguing novelistic elements of the story.
An innovative but uneven spiritual tale.Pub Date: Dec. 9, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-08-656829-5
Page Count: 275
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Jan. 4, 2021
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A disappointing novel from a much-praised writer.
This debut novel offers a group portrait of people in upstate New York trying to figure out how to build new lives.
Every day after school, Jackson Huang joins his mom, Tina, at Sunshine Clips in Greenways Mall. She tends to the needs of a dwindling roster of clients. He does his homework and sweeps up hair. Her most loyal customer is Ro Goodson, an elderly woman with a prickly personality and a knack for being offensive. Ro’s next-door neighbor Kevin manages the bookstore across from the salon. He’s been stalled on his dissertation long enough to realize that he doesn’t really want to be in academia. He lives with his wife and two kids in a tiny house he built in his mother-in-law’s backyard. Maria, who works at the fried-chicken place in the food court, is a high school senior who dreams of being an actor. Losing the lead role in West Side Story to a girl who is blond and blue-eyed makes her question herself. Their lives intersect in a variety of ways, and all of them are wondering what they’ll do when the mall closes. A dying shopping center seems like a perfect metaphor for…something, but what that something might be never quite coalesces. Instead, the mall feels like a set built for this very small cast. The scenes set in Ro and Kevin’s neighborhood and in Maria’s school also seem like they’re happening on a soundstage. Perhaps the intention here was to invoke the claustrophobia of a small town, to create the sense that the outside world isn’t real. But nothing that happens within this circumscribed environment feels real, either—not even the act of violence that serves as something of a climax. Lin-Greenberg earned critical recognition for Faulty Predictions (2014) and Vanished (2022), her collections of short fiction. But the invention and energy readers found in those stories are missing here.
A disappointing novel from a much-praised writer.Pub Date: May 2, 2023
ISBN: 9781640095434
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Counterpoint
Review Posted Online: Feb. 23, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
A poignant slice-of-life drama about comforting one’s inner child and moving forward.
Levan’s debut novel tells a story of one woman’s past trauma and how it affects her present.
Twenty-something Allegra Gil is a Miami-based trauma counselor, and a woman who effectively exists in two very different worlds. In the present day, she lives with her idyllic husband, Benito, and their two young children. But she can’t escape her past with her abusive parents, including a narcissistic mother who says things such as “You have no idea how much having children will hold you back from the things you love.” Her parents are still making her feel small, even into her adulthood; Allegra has, at some level, enabled such behavior in order to keep the peace. That is, until she discovers a letter that changes everything: “I grappled with what to do. Who to tell. What to make of it all.” It’s the catalyst for her to finally start shaking off her anxieties and fear, embrace spirituality, and find courage to break a cycle that threatens her own children. Levan does not shy away from the difficult, yet relatable, issues that plague her protagonist––from emotional abuse and body shaming to miscarriage and life-threatening illness. She shows how Allegra pulls together the hazy pieces of her life and reconciles herself with the fact that all of them, good and bad, have made her into the person she is today. As a character, she’s a quiet presence, but readers will root for her during her slow journey to emotional resolution. Throughout, Levan seems more concerned with detail and discovery, placing moments of realism and characterization ahead of advancing the plot. Anyone willing to travel with her, often through memories that flood into her present life, will appreciate an acute portrait of a woman reckoning with her own history; it may even inspire some readers to take note of the boundaries in their own lives.
Pub Date: March 12, 2024
ISBN: 9798888454190
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Regalo Press
Review Posted Online: March 7, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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