Jesus Saves - Softcover

Steinke, Darcey

3.4

586 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802135986 ISBN 13: 9780802135988

Publisher: Grove Press, 1999

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From one of the most daring young writers in America, Jesus Saves, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, is a suburban gothic that explores the sources of evil, confronts the dynamic shifts within theology, and traces the consequences of suburban alienation. Set in the modern launch pads of adolescent ritual, the strip malls and duplexes on the back side of suburbia, it's the story of two girls: Ginger, a troubled minister's daughter; and Sandy Patrick, who has been abducted from summer camp and now smiles from missing-child posters all over town. Layering the dreamscapes of Alice in Wonderland with the subculture of River's Edge, Darcey Steinke's Jesus Saves is an unforgettable passage through the depths of the literary imagination.

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From the Back Cover:

Jesus Saves is a chilling horror story, a suburban gothic that explores the darkest limits of human degradation. Set in a landscape of strip malls and feral kudzu-covered dump sites, this book focuses on the other suburbia, not the green manicured lawns and well-tended ranch houses, but the trampled, trash-filled strips of woods lying between subdivisions and superhighways, launchpads for adolescent ritual, whose sacramental remnants are discarded beer cans and charred wood. At the center of this community are two girls: Sandy Patrick, who has been abducted from summer camp and now smiles from missing-child posters all over town; and Ginger, a troubled minister's daughter, whose fixation on Sandy borders on obsession. Ultimately, these two young women are brought together by a violent and dispossessed man who leads them into a night of diabolical terror and the final confrontation between the sacred and profane.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A grim and often persuasive view of modern suburbia as the outer circle of hell. Steinke (Suicide Blonde, 1992, etc.) clearly knows the terrain well. Her portrait of a northeastern suburb, in which the well- ordered housing developments and antiseptic malls can't quite suppress the disorder lurking close by, is precise and convincing. Adolescent Ginger, the protagonist, is uneasily caught between those worlds. Her father is a minister, a sign of order and continuity in the community. But Ginger, who has watched her mother die slowly of cancer, senses that life is willful and violent. Even the remnants of the natural world around her--garbage-strewn lots and contaminated streams--seem to suggest decay. Meanwhile, her boyfriend, horribly scarred in an accident, is obsessed with death. (When they strike and kill a deer on a dark road, he cuts off the head as a trophy, and carefully describes to her the stages of its decomposition.) The clearest sign of disorder, though, is the disappearance of a local girl, Sandy Patrick, who's been kidnapped from summer camp by a child molester. Invisible to authorities, he drives his nondescript van, with Sandy tied up inside, aimlessly from one town to the next, smuggling the terrified and abused child into one seedy motel room after another. Ginger, desperate to find some purpose to life, becomes obsessed with Sandy's disappearance, and begins trying to puzzle out who the child was. Several chapters follow Sandy's horrific existence with ``the troll,'' the deranged figure who's keeping her captive. Ginger's wayward investigation finally brings her to an unexpected, violent confrontation with him. Charting suburban despair and ennui is not new terrain, but Steinke brings to her portrait a powerful dark lyricism, a sharp eye for character, and a seemingly natural gift for metaphor. This is angry, painful, disturbing fiction, its impact only slightly lessened by the occasional rhapsodic outbursts of some of the characters. (Author tour) -- Copyright �1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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