Monday, August 10, 2015

Page 69: The Revelator

The Page 69 Test is not mine. It has been around since 2007, asking authors to compare page 69 against the meat of the actual story it is a part of. I loved the whole idea of it and so I'm stealing it specifically to showcase small press titles - novels, novellas, short story collections, the works! So until the founder of The Page 69 Test calls a cease and desist, let's do this thing....



In this installment of Page 69, 
we put Robert Kloss's The Revelator to the test.
(The book releases September 15th)






OK, Robert, set up page 69 for us.

Page 69 marks the start of the Revelator’s transition from husband and father and butcher’s apprentice to preacher.




What is The Revelator about?

 It’s a western horror historical novel loosely based, often very loosely, on the life of Joseph Smith and the foundation of his church.




Do you think this page gives our readers an accurate sense of what The Revelator is about? Does it align itself the book’s theme? 

 It’s a rather quiet moment in the book, I think. It’s a transitional moment. The tone of the writing is a fair indication of the rest of the book. I actually really like this scene, because it illustrates the awkwardness of a regular person transitioning toward what he believes is a higher calling. His wife and son and neighbors still think of him as this person they’ve always seen him as, while he has moved on from that world. And of course to the outside it seems like he’s lost his mind and maybe he has.




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PAGE 69
THE REVELATOR


And you commanded your son to place the loose pages of your ministry into the hands of the townspeople, so he went about saying, “Behold, the new words of the Almighty.” And stray dogs trotted in his wake and birds overburdened the trees, watching him by the hundreds. But most citizens he came upon furrowed their brows and sent your son on his way.

            And when they mocked your son’s claims now you went door-to-door, smiling and preaching and glad-handing. And when your wife asked to be absented from these excursions you commanded her to walk at your side. And so she went, whispering how she felt naked before the eyes of all, saying, “I did not know it would be like this.” And by this you figured she meant the wife of a great man and prophet. So to her you insisted, “It will become easier. You will see.” What a fine presentation you both made, she in her finest blue dress with her red shawl and feather-trimmed bonnet and ink-blackened hands, while you stood in your soot-black coat, your high collar, and with the onion-slender pages you outheld as you announced, “Brothers and sisters, the Almighty has blessed me with His terrible presence.”


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Robert Kloss is the author of the novels The Alligators of Abraham and The Revelator and the co-author of The Desert Places (with Amber Sparks and Matt Kish).


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