I swear I feel like I’ve read this book before and for the life of me I can’t see why I didn’t review it then. I had a look at all my past books I’ve read from Bentley Little and while he does talk a lot about Adobe buildings and the Arizona desert, I can’t find this exact book in my read list.

The Molokan religion was indeed a strange one

I think I’ve only read two books in my life time dealing with the very obscure Russian religious group called the Molokans. Or about a very specific house spirit called Jedushka Di Muvedushka.

OK, down to the book.

Man wins the lottery and along with his wife and two children, and his elderly mother, decides to move back to his roots, in the armpit of America, where his money can last longer.

He’s rich but not ultra-rich and he gets like $80k a year from his winnings.

He buys a house that used to belong to another family and only afterwards he finds out that the shadowy and damp place belonged to a family who died in violent circumstances – the father killed everyone and then committed suicide.

I mean, at this point he’d leave, no? He’d get out of the contract for the sale considering the estate agent lied about something so essential, and they’d move to sunny Florida. The end.

No, he decides to stay. His wife sees shadows moving and weird sounds. His boy is obsessed with the new banya. His mother is extremely happy to be back in the bosom of the community she’d left behind. The Molokans.

And I think this is where this book is good. It shows the growing space between more secular Molokans and the ones who’d been left to fester (for lack of a better word), in isolated communities.

But her parents had been born and raised in L.A. Gregory’s family came from a more insular community, and their fear of the outside culture was greater. There was also a certain element of racism, a sense of superiority. Russians were better than Outsiders, and somehow businessmen and merchants who were of the same religion were regarded as more trustworthy. Gregory had tried to explain to his mother that gasoline was not more holy because it was dispensed by a Molokan, and that the free-market principles that applied to every other aspect of life still applied here. “I buy gas wherever it’s cheapest,” he said. “If Mohov is cheapest, I’ll buy from him.”

Molokans were naturally secretive, she knew. It was an understandable by-product of being an oppressed minority.

The second sub-plot is how having an elderly parent in the house is affecting the family dynamic. The wife was fine with her mother-in-law but her feelings started to change once they started living toghether and the old woman started sprouting more of her religious nonsense to their kids.

But seeing someone on weekends and talking occasionally on the phone, she discovered, was quite a bit different than living together twenty-four hours a day.

And also, when they’d left their previous house, they had forgotten to invite their house spirit on their next house with them.

She wasn’t that familiar with this particular legend, but she knew that Jedushka Di Muvedushka was supposed to protect them. He was the guardian of the family against whatever supernatural entities might want to infiltrate and interfere with their lives

He’s described as being a bearded, stout, Russian man, the kind type, who braids horse’s hairs and is kind and protective. Everything you’d want in a house.

The fun part is, that the house’s banya (a bath building apart from the main house) has an ominous quality and a shadow that lingers.

It hovered on the adobe wall above the broken benches, bigger than life. The profile of a man. A Russian man with a fat stomach and a full, chest-length beard.

oooo!

Let the spookiness begin!

Jim continued to stagger backward, praying out loud, as the Bible turned in midair and flew toward him, its pages flapping. It looked like some sort of hideously deformed bird, not like a book at all, and he ducked, losing his balance and falling to the floor, as it dove at his head.

OK, haunted Bible I did not expect. Nor did I expect the book to turn into a combination of The Whispering and The Amityville Horror – Jay Anson (1977)

“Get the gun,” his father said softly. “You know you want to. Get the gun and stuff it up her pussy where all those other men have stuffed their cocks, and blow their leftover sperm out with a bullet. That’ll teach her. That’ll teach all of them.”
Gregory nodded.

There’s more gross stuff, some incestuous thoughts from brother to sister and some raping. If you’re squeamish, this book isn’t for you. PS: a lot of people die.

Book good parts: the description of minorities, of the struggles to blend in, the first generation of everything will struggle to adjust to the world.
Bad parts: waaaay too much dicking around with incest (even though I’ve seen this in other books of Bentley Little’s this one seemed to … reek a bit. Go see a therapist dude.