TARRY THIS NIGHT, dystopian cult-plus-incest-plus-climate change near-future nightmare...for teens!

TARRY THIS NIGHT
KRISTYN DUNNION
Arsenal Pulp Press
$14.95 trade paper, available now

Rating: 4* of five

The Publsher Says: In this dystopian, eerily relevant novel, a civil war is brewing in America. Below ground, a cult led by the deluded and narcissistic Father Ernst is ensconced in an underground bunker, waiting out the conflict. When "The Family" runs out of food, Ruth, coming of age and terrified of serving as Ernst's next wife, must choose between obeying her faith and fighting for survival. In this unsettling modern Lilith tale, spirited women resist their violent, racist culture and, in so doing, become outlaws.

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: Another call-to-arms for the young women of the US. It's dystopian, all right, but in the six years since its publiction it's only bexome more prescient.

The profound evil of religious belief is its de facto division of the world into Us and Them. There's no need to be saved if everyone is, regardless of their behavior and/or diet and/or sex life,right? So it must be that some people aren't saved; therefore they must be wicked for not following the way to salvation, because of course everyone who's good wants to be saved, and if you explain how to be saved and they don't do it, they're Bad...They are Bad, because WE are Good! This being the least talked-about part of religious belief, it's fertile ground for Author Dunnion to poke around to see what kind of struggle-bugs come out of the dark, smelly pit underneath the pile of unexamined Articles of Faith.

The horror of this system is its endless supply of unquestioning followers, perpetuating abuse and calling it love.

That might be the single most evil thing ever done by one human to another.

My issue with this story isn't the story itself, or the worldbuilding the Canadian author does for the US South, but the pacing of the plot. Reading the first half of the book, one is trapped in a slooow-motion car crash, awaiting the inevitable explosion. It all takes far longer to reach ignition than it should to keep readers engaged...it took me six years and a nagging sense of unfinished business to get back to it.

In spite of that serious misgiving, though, I think the experience by the end is one of horrified and outraged identification with the situation and the characters, and should fill a void in your trapped-indoors-by-the-heat summer 2023 reading.