First Things First

One of the most imaginative and inspired writers of our time, Sena Jeter Naslund delivers her most ambitious and encompassing tale yet. The New York Times bestselling author of Ahab's Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance returns with an audacious and provocative novel that envisions a world where science and faith contend for the allegiance of a new Adam & Eve. She'll read from her latest book 7:30pm, Monday, October 4, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

When Thom Bergmann discovers extraterrestrial life with his wife, Lucy, they fear that that the world is not ready for proof of life elsewhere in the universe. Upon Thom's his untimely--and highly suspicious--death, Lucy keeps the secret, until Thom's friend, anthropologist Pierre Saad, contacts Lucy with an unusual and dangerous request about another sensitive matter. Pierre needs Lucy to help him smuggle a newly discovered artifact out of Egypt: an ancient codex concerning the human authorship of the Book of Genesis. Offering a reinterpretation of the creation story, the document is sure to threaten the foundation of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions . . . and there are those who will stop at nothing to suppress it.

“To describe the elements of this ambitious novel is to sound unhinged, but Naslund pulls it off. This thriller is rich in brilliant discourses on religion, fanaticism, the meaning of ancient cave art, the speculative future, and love.”--Library Journal

Set against the searing debate between evolutionists and creationists, Adam & Eve expands the definition of a "sacred book," and suggests that true madness lies in wars and violence fueled by all religious literalism and intolerance. A thriller, a romance, an adventure, and an idyll, Adam & Eve is a tour de force by a master contemporary storyteller.

Naslund succeeds splendidly in making history a page-turner.”--USA Weekend

A native of Birmingham, Alabama, Sena Jeter Naslund is Distinguished Teaching Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of Louisville; program director of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA in Writing. A winner of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writers, she is the author of seven previous works of fiction.

Details are here.--David E