Review: White Horse by Alex Adams

White Horse, Alex Adams’s debut, is post-apocalyptic novel, the first of a trilogy, that may appeal to some—but I'm not one of them, I’m afraid.

Adams’ heroine Zoe is a thirty-year-old widow at loose ends. She inherited an apartment in the city and apparently has no trouble making ends even though she works as a janitor for Pope Pharmaceuticals. Zoe could be doing other things—she’s intelligent and talented—but she is content for now to have a non-demanding day job and to resist the attempts of family and friends to fix her up with a man.

One day she finds a jar has been placed inside her well-protected domicile. Someone has obviously broken in, but nothing is taken; just a jar has mysteriously arrived. Unnerved, she starts to see a therapist, claiming the jar is a dream because she’s afraid he’ll think her insane if she admits it’s real.

With the jar sitting untouched in her apartment, Zoe sees Nick, her handsome therapist with whom she is developing a greater-than-therapeutic rapport. She is occasionally required to undergo physicals at work, during which she is given a mandatory flu shot.

Soon Zoe notices people in her building becoming ill. First they appear to have the flu, then they seem to recover only to drop dead. It’s not just in her building, however, it’s everywhere. Adding to world misery, a war is raging over the technology to control the weather. The Chinese knock out the Internet, and the U.S. in plunged back into the era of broadcast television.

All this happened “before.” “Now” Zoe is traveling through war- and sickness-ravaged Europe, doing what it takes to stay alive. The illness, which an Evangelical preacher named “White Horse” after one of the four horses of the Apocalypse, has decimated 80% of the world’s population. Of those who survive, many have genetic mutations. (Some turn into man-eating animals; others grow grotesque extra appendages.)

There is so much about this book that doesn’t work for me. The narrative has momentum but is marred by clumsy metaphors and its disjointed structure. The story jumps back and forth between “now” and “then,” starting with “now,” until the two timelines meet. This construction is absolutely unnecessary for Zoe’s story to be suspenseful; in fact, suspense would have been heightened in a linear telling starting from the beginning instead of with the horrible outcome of the White Horse plague.

Another pet peeve: Alex Adams appears to know very little about psychotherapy, because Zoe’s therapist is exceedingly unprofessional. He is altogether too familiar with Zoe and continues to treat her even after making a pass at her.

Another quandary: Why two apocalyptic elements, White Horse and an unrelated world war? Either one is suitable for Adams’ purposes. Having both is not necessarily a bad thing, but the way the war over the weather is treated is so cursory, it seems to have been added to the plot just to knock out the Internet.

Believe it or not, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy the novel at all. End-of-the-world stories have a narrative drive that makes you turn pages, and White Horse shares that attribute. I think this book could have worked well with a strong editorial hand to guide it. As it is, I’d have to say unless the plot elements intrigue you, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Review: All for Now by Joseph Di Prisco

At first glance, All for Now sounds like it could be a tough read because it deals with clergy sexual abuse and death. Nothing could be further from the truth, however. Deploying intelligence and humor, author Joseph Di Prisco examines his subject in an engaging and entertaining way, and the end result is anything but morbid.

The novel recounts the immediate afterlife of Brother Stephen, a member of a Catholic teaching brotherhood who dies as his order is facing multiple lawsuits over sexual abuse. Stephen became a Brother right after graduating from the very high school he would teach in. After 20 years, he became an administrator, just about the time abuse allegations against priests were becoming rampant. The Brothers were no exception, and Stephen oversaw the fiscal aspects of the ensuing settlements.

On the day he died, his order was discussing the case of Shannon Reed, who said she had been molested by Brother Joel, now deceased, and had had her charges summarily dismissed by Brother Charlie, an octogenarian who was the principal at the time.

The case was particularly painful to Stephen. Shannon had been a very close friend of his in high school, and Charlie had been his teacher and mentor in the Brotherhood. Facing this difficult situation, Brother Stephen keels over in the middle of a meeting.

Stephen was a keen observer in life, and he is of the afterlife as well, which features a white Prius he drives around the California coast. He meets some of the people he had known in life, but his most dogged companion is Brother Charlie, whom Stephen discovers in the trunk of the car.

Brother Stephen is a sympathetic character with a wry sense of humor, which ironically infuses the story of his death with liveliness. As he careens through his afterlife, which most closely resembles a dream with its fanciful aspects, he hears himself interviewed on NPR, and visits jumbled scenes from his life, most prominently high school. Puzzled, Stephen tries to figure out what is going on. What’s going on is that he must finally face the truth of his life.

Brother Stephen tackles his death experience with an aplomb he apparently never managed in life, and we root for him the whole way through his afterlife adventures. Each chapter begins with a quote from the Baltimore Catechism (which, according to Wikipedia, was the “de facto standard Catholic school text in the United States from 1885 to the late 1960s”). No doubt this construction will speak most to those who were raised Catholic.

Catholic or not, religious or not, All for Now is accessible to everyone because mistakes and forgiveness are universal. A novel about a serious topic that is no downer, both All for Now and its protagonist come to a satisfying end.

Article first published as Book Review: All for Now by Joseph Di Prisco on Blogcritics.