At a small New York college, two roommates set out to create
a religious cult as a social experiment. Soon, however, things take a malevolent
turn when the burgeoning Church’s chosen messiah turns out to be a socio-pathological
lunatic. Waking to find himself trapped in a sort of dungeon cell like that of
John of Patmos, with only a typewriter, a spider, and the rotting corpse of his
former roommate for companionship, Harden Campbell sets to work writing his book
of Revelation.
Set over a quarter century ago, Carter Wilson’s novel, Revelation, was only published last
year, but it could easily have been set in contemporary times. The story
toggles between third-person point of view and first as some of the examination
of the action puts us in the position of observer, while other chapters are
from the perspective of a manuscript being written by the captive, Harden.
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| Carter Wilson |
There are three main characters, our part-time narrator,
Harden; his roommate turned tormenter, Coyote; and Coyote’s girlfriend, Emma. The
story takes us from Harden’s first meeting with Coyote all the way to a
contrived conclusion in which the triangle of Harden, Coyote, and Emma come
together to realize Coyote’s penultimate coup
de grace, unless a miracle or Deus
ex Machina intervenes.
My review is based on the audio version, which I received in
exchange for my honest review, and to be honest, I’m not sure how I felt about
the choice of narrator, Timothy McKean. It’s not that he did a bad job. On the
contrary, he helped give life to the characters and added a sense of reality to
the tension, and in the end that’s really all one can ask of a voice actor. But
there is a slight Keanu Reeves-like immaturity to the quality of his tone. Another
coming-of-age/college-experience story that wasn’t also about a murderous
messianic sadist would probably be right in his wheelhouse.
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| Timothy McKean |
As for the story, I have to confess, I have a particular
fondness for thrillers which twist the conventions of religion into something
distorted and horrifying. The best parts of this story for me were, in fact,
the aspects showing how a charismatic sociopath could easily convince enough vulnerable
and weak-willed neophytes to follow his promises of lasting happiness and self-improvement.
From my perspective, Jim Jones, L. Ron Hubbard, Joseph Smith, and Paul of Tarsus
are all just variations of a theme representing a template from which Wylie “Coyote”
Martin was drawn.
Revelation is a successful thriller the same way that the
first season of The Following was a
success. We believe that a sociopath with access to vulnerable minds and a
fortune in expendable cash could create the illusion that he has a message
about the purpose of life. But why wouldn’t we believe that? After all, Joel
Osteen and Tony Robbins are real people, and we’ve seen what they have done
with the starter recipe. All we have to then do is toss in a little Charles
Manson and some Kellyanne Conway. Voila!
Available on Amazon and Audible
