a book
The Open Curtain
Brian Evenson · 2006 · 223 pages
"There is not a more intense, prolific, or apocalyptic writer of fiction in America than Brian Evenson."—George Saunders "A contemporary gothic tale about the apocalyptic connection between religion and violence."—Publishers Weekly When Rudd, a troubled teenager, embarks on a school research project, he runs across the secret Mormon ritual of blood sacrifice, and its role in a 1902 murder committed by the grandson of Brigham Young. Along with his newly discovered half-brother, Rudd becomes swept up in the psychological and atavistic effects of this violent, antique ritual.
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Peter Straub
“A Mormon teenager discovers that his father’s infidelity may have given him a half brother, and he contrives to meet this sibling while he’s researching a murder from the past that was hushed up by the Mormon Church. Subtly but irrevocably, the world and the protagonist’s selfhood become estranged. This is one of the bravest, most searching novels I know.”↗