Jeff Sharlet - I've long been an admirer of Eric Scott's nonfiction on paganism. His stories are so smart, so well told, I was surprised to learn that he would be publishing a novella. Now, having read it in one sitting, I'm glad Scott's writing "pagan fiction," too. Only, The Lives of the Apostates is more than that -- at its best, it's a complication of belief and beliefs, the story of a clash between a student and a professor, between religion and reality, between a young man's faith and his circumstances.
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Description
In a Midwest college town, a Wiccan student named Lou finds himself forced into taking a History of Christian Thought class from a religion professor who spends his weekends preaching at the local Baptist church. Between shifts as a caretaker for mentally handicapped men Lou calls "the boys," he confronts his professor's story of Christian triumph with increasing anger. As tensions escalate, he turns to his roommate, a fellow Pagan with the unfortunate nickname of Grimey, and his coven-mate and crush, Lucy, for support. But Grimey is dealing with his own problems hiding his faith from his mother. In the course of a single night, the world collapses for Grimey and one of Lou's boys, and Lou finds himself standing up for himself and his beliefs.
