High as the horses' bridles : a novel /

Josiah Laudermilk is a phenomenon in the Evangelical Brothers in the Lord church in Queens, New York. A preacher since he was 7, he stuns a congregation of thousands when, at the age of 12, filled with the spirit of the Lord, he issues a prophecy about the coming of Armageddon. But his best friend disappears, his high-school girlfriend drowns, his mother dies of cancer, and he loses his faith. Long after leaving his childhood home for California, Josiah at 37 is divorced, his computer store's business is lagging, and his father, the primary nurturer of his religion early in his life, is in desperately failing health. There's a lot for Josiah to reconcile, from the love for his ex-wife, Sarah, who's moving on in her life but remains close to his father, to his core beliefs about God and death. Cheshire tackles life's biggest issues through the person of Josiah, whose evangelistic heritage is finally revealed, in a narrative studded with gems of insight about the human condition. An impressively crafted literary first novel.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2010 Booklist

In his debut, Cheshire proves himself nimble with biblical language, integrating its cadence and mystery into his own prose to powerful effect. The book opens in 1980 in Queens, when Josiah Laudermilk, age 12, listens to his church's reverend hollering from the pulpit about the "sinners' blood" that will flow at Armageddon. The threat of apocalypse, more so than that of a wrathful God, is the true religion of Josiah's upbringing. As a promising young preacher, he becomes so enamored of the thought of apocalypse that he abandons his more measured sermons for those presenting a vision of the end of days. Unfortunately, the thunder and lightning of the opening pages soon gives way, jumping ahead 25 years to find "Josie" divorced, depressed, and living in California. Though the novel often cuts back in time, the rest of Josiah's life, and therefore the novel, remains in the middle distance, neither intimate in its unfolding, nor recounted with any interesting wisdom. Despite the promise of the framework, the prose soon becomes monotonous, with both the implausibly frequent catastrophes as well as the minutiae of Josiah's day-to-day failing to ever ignite. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

A former boy preacher finds it easier to shuck off religion than his father in this limp first novel.The boy stands on the stage in a movie theater, bearing witness before a congregation 4,000 strong. They are members of an apocalyptic cult, Brothers in the Lord, and 12-year-old Josiah Laudermilk electrifies them by announcing the year of the End: 2000. In this Queens, New York, theater in 1980, Josiah has heard a voice and seen a vision. His parents, Gill and Ida, have been treating him as a divine messenger since a very pregnant Ida was dunked and reborn. Yet Josiah is still a child, an only child clutching his Star Wars lucky charm, and lonely as hell until he makes friends with little Issy and, later, the girl next door, Bhanu from Bangladesh. Then they disappear, first Issy (an unsolved abduction) and later Bhanu (swimming-pool accident). At times, it seems as though Cheshires theme of religious faith and its flawed practitioners will disappear too, as the novel drifts between Queens and Southern California. Josiah moves there after Gill becomes increasingly weird, attempting to start his own religion and insisting on bathing rules; his own faith ended in his teens, quietly, without drama. In California, improbably, Josiah becomes a retail mogul with four computer stores (three will disappear) and meets Sarah, a Jewish translator, who stays out of focus, as does their subsequent marriage. A trial separation ends with 9/11, when they have goodbye-forever sex and the dominoes fall: pregnancy, abortion, divorce. Josiah returns briefly to Queens to find his father gripped by religious mania, fasting so that hes skin and bones and sleeping next to a half-filled tub in the bathroom (its all in Revelation).A lackluster attempt to see a religious subculture refracted through individual lives. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.