Winner of the Christianity Today Book Award, Fiction In Eden Mine, the award-winning author of Black River examines the aftershocks of an act of domestic terrorism rooted in a small Montana town on the brink of abandonment, as it tears apart a family, tests the faith of a pastor and the loyalty of a sister, and mines the deep rifts that come when the reach of the government clashes with … the government clashes with individual freedom
If I stay here, Jo, I know you could find me. If you wanted to, you could find me.
For generations, the Fabers have lived near Eden Mine, scraping by to keep ahold of their family’s piece of Montana. Jo and her brother, Samuel, will be the last. Despite a long battle, their property has been seized by the state through eminent domain—something Samuel deems a government theft.
As Jo packs, she hears news of a bombing. Samuel went off to find work in Wyoming that morning, but soon enough, it’s clear that he’s not gone but missing, last seen by a security camera near the district courthouse?now a crime scene?in Elk Fork. And the nine-year-old daughter of a pastor at a nearby church lies in critical condition.
Can the person Jo loves and trusts most have done this terrible thing? Can she have missed the signs? The last time their family met violence, Jo lost her ability to walk. Samuel took care of her, outfitted their barn with special rigging so she could still ride their mule. What secrets has he been keeping? As Jo watches the pastor fight for his daughter, watches the authorities hunt down a criminal, she wrestles with an impossible choice: Must she tell them where Samuel might be? Must she choose between loyalty and justice? Between the brother she knows and the man he has become?
A timely story of the tensions splintering families and communities all over this country, S.M. Hulse’s Eden Mine is also a steady-eyed gaze into the ideals of the West and the legacies of violence, a moving account of faith in the face of evil, and a heartrending reckoning of the terrible choices we make for the ones we love.
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“I don’t understand belief, why it comes to some people and not others, why tragedy strengthens it in some and shatters it in others.”
Jo Faber and her older brother, Samuel, have lived in their Montana home their whole lives. It was settled in 1920 by their great-grandfather and it was supposed to stay in their family forever. Recently they received notification that their property is being taken by the government under eminent domain.
Jo and Samuel have already had a hard life. Their father is dead. They went through a terrible ordeal after that that left their mother dead and Jo a quadriplegic.
Now Samuel has disappeared and the local sheriff, who is a friend of brother and sister, comes to tell No that Samuel committed an act of terrorism, leaving people injured.
This is the second book by author Hulse I’ve read. BLACK RIVER was an excellent, though dark story, and this is too.
Relationships, love of the land, bad decisions, faith and the lack of it – all are intertwined in a complex tale of the “what ifs” in life.
I received this book from Farrar, Straus & Giroux through Edelweiss and Net Galley in the hopes that I would read it and I would leave an unbiased review.
I was a big fan of S. M. Hulse’s debut novel Black River and have been eagerly awaiting Eden Mine. Hulse has a magic pen that creates a vivid sense of place and complex, conflicted characters embroiled in devastating moral choices.
However damaged it might be, however poisoned, however marred, it’s not just our home; it’s what remains of our family. ~from Eden Mine by S. M. Hulse
Tall Montana mountains on the east side casts their shadows on the valley until near noon. The silver mines left their legacy of polluted water and broken families. Jo and Samuel Faber’s grandfather worked the mines for thirty years to afford a plot of land at retirement. Their father died in a mine collapse.
Eden on one side, Gethsemane on the other, the mountains define Jo’s world, a paradise she loves, haunted by ghastly memories of her mother’s brutal murder. Her brother Samuel had hoped to leave this dying town. Instead, he became Jo’s protector, her guardian. For when the disgruntled lover murdered their mother, a bullet also struck Jo.
The orphaned siblings lost too much, including their faith, but they had each other. Samuel, Jo knew, would always protect her. Jo enjoyed “casting the world in its best light” in her paintings that she sold at the gas station gift shop, and she also saw her brother in his best light, ignoring his darker attractions and anger.
The first sentence in the novel sets the conflict: “My brother’s bomb explodes at 10:16 on a late April Sunday morning.” Unable to fight the takeover of their family land through eminent domain, Samuel acts out. He never planned for anyone to be hurt–that’s why he bombed the courthouse on a Sunday morning.
Samuel did not know that a church met in a storefront across the street. People were hurt, including the pastor’s daughter.
Sheriff Hawkins comes to Jo. He has protected the siblings since their mother’s death. He knows Jo could help the law find her brother. He knows the truth of that awful day when their mother’s murderer was beaten to death.
Alone to face the looming deadline to vacate their family home, besieged by law and paparazzi, Jo finds aid from an unexpected person: Pastor Asa whose daughter lays in the hospital, a victim of Samuel’s bomb. He is adrift spiritually, his faith unable to explain or cure what has happened.
Samuel agonizes over how he came to come to this point. His biggest choice is yet to come. Can he change?
Jo loves her brother. How long can she remain silent about what she knows?
Pastor Asa rails at his impotence to heal what is broken, the wife who died young, his comatose daughter. He is in the desert, hoping to find the still waters of faith again.
Hulse has again offered a novel that satisfies on so many levels: the propulsive plot, characters who are sympathetic and conflicted and real, a landscape painted in detailed richness, and the universal and timeless theme of being lost and seeking forgiveness and faith.
I was given a free book by the publisher in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.