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Adam & Eve
*This is an Advanced Readers Copy*
Hours before his untimely—and highly suspicious—death, world-renowned astrophysicist Thom Bergmann shares his discovery of extraterrestrial life with his wife, Lucy. Feeling that the warring world is not ready to learn of—or accept—proof of life elsewhere in the universe, Thom entrusts Lucy with his computer flash drive, which holds the keys to his secret work.
Devastated by Thom's death, Lucy keeps the secret, but 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.
Midway through the daring journey, Lucy's small plane goes down on a slip of verdant land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East. Burned in the crash landing, she is rescued by Adam, a delusional American soldier whose search for both spiritual and carnal knowledge has led to madness. Blessed with youth, beauty, and an unsettling innocence, Adam gently tends to Lucy's wounds, and in this quiet, solitary paradise, a bond between the unlikely pair grows. Ultimately, Lucy and Adam forsake their half-mythical Eden and make their way back toward civilization, where members of an ultraconservative religious cult are determined to deprive the world of the knowledge Lucy carries.
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.
Hours before his untimely—and highly suspicious—death, world-renowned astrophysicist Thom Bergmann shares his discovery of extraterrestrial life with his wife, Lucy. Feeling that the warring world is not ready to learn of—or accept—proof of life elsewhere in the universe, Thom entrusts Lucy with his computer flash drive, which holds the keys to his secret work.
Devastated by Thom's death, Lucy keeps the secret, but 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.
Midway through the daring journey, Lucy's small plane goes down on a slip of verdant land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Middle East. Burned in the crash landing, she is rescued by Adam, a delusional American soldier whose search for both spiritual and carnal knowledge has led to madness. Blessed with youth, beauty, and an unsettling innocence, Adam gently tends to Lucy's wounds, and in this quiet, solitary paradise, a bond between the unlikely pair grows. Ultimately, Lucy and Adam forsake their half-mythical Eden and make their way back toward civilization, where members of an ultraconservative religious cult are determined to deprive the world of the knowledge Lucy carries.
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.
339 pages, Paperback
First published September 28, 2010
57 people are currently reading
1085 people want to read
About the author
Sena Jeter Naslund
26 books433 followersSena Jeter Naslund is an American writer and educator, author of seven novels and two short-fiction collections. Her novels Ahab's Wife (1999) and Four Spirits (2003) were named New York Times Notable Books of the Year. She co-founded the low-residency MFA program at Spalding University and serves as Writer in Residence at the University of Louisville. Naslund was named Poet Laureate of Kentucky in 2005. Her work often explores women who are marginalized or misunderstood. She lives in Louisville, Kentucky, in the former home of poet Madison Cawein.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 324 reviews
October 14, 2011
I could have wept with disappointment at this book. When you consider that Ahab's Wife is one of my favourites, how much I wanted to like this! How hard I tried! I even gave it an extra star, just because I know this author is capable of so much more. I hate to disparage any author. I know well the time, effort, perseverence and sheer talent it takes to get a book into publication. Yet, all I could think during the interminable reading of this book is that she must have embarked on a long, long, bad acid trip during the writing. And that everyone at William Morrow joined her, because editing was nonexistent in this dreary, meandering tome. Aside from disjointed, nonsensical plot, it alternated between self-important exposition, "look at me! Look at how much I know!" and dreamy musings about nothing interesting.
It was awful. So awful that I kept reading to make sure that I wasn't misunderstanding something. Surely Sena Jeter Naslund, a brilliant talent, knew better. Eventually, Emperor's new clothes came to mind. There was no reasonable opportunity to suspend disbelief. Disbelief became my perpetual state during the entire FIFTEEN hours it took to listen to it on MP3. Yes, I listened to it, walked, made dinner, gardened, drank wine, drank more wine and lamented the fifteen hours I will never get back.
I am trying not to insert any spoilers, but it's so hard. Suffice it to say, it started with such an interesting, intriguing premise, the promise of so many of great genres: thriller, sci-fi, romance, historical, and delivered on NONE of them. The questions that were asked were never answered, the questions that SHOULD have been asked never were, the characters were wooden and reacted oddly to situations that demanded so much more. Why did Lucy crash? Why was no one looking for anyone who was missing? Families? Army? Friends? Governments? Why would Lucy have been entrusted with supposedly the most important document in the world to begin with? What was Adam doing in Mesopotamia in the first place? What was Riley doing there?
Eternal optimist that I am I still hoped for redemption in the end, but there was none! It was even crazier, more disjointed than the rest of the book. I won't give up on this author, but will be far more cautious about my selections of her work in future.
It was awful. So awful that I kept reading to make sure that I wasn't misunderstanding something. Surely Sena Jeter Naslund, a brilliant talent, knew better. Eventually, Emperor's new clothes came to mind. There was no reasonable opportunity to suspend disbelief. Disbelief became my perpetual state during the entire FIFTEEN hours it took to listen to it on MP3. Yes, I listened to it, walked, made dinner, gardened, drank wine, drank more wine and lamented the fifteen hours I will never get back.
I am trying not to insert any spoilers, but it's so hard. Suffice it to say, it started with such an interesting, intriguing premise, the promise of so many of great genres: thriller, sci-fi, romance, historical, and delivered on NONE of them. The questions that were asked were never answered, the questions that SHOULD have been asked never were, the characters were wooden and reacted oddly to situations that demanded so much more. Why did Lucy crash? Why was no one looking for anyone who was missing? Families? Army? Friends? Governments? Why would Lucy have been entrusted with supposedly the most important document in the world to begin with? What was Adam doing in Mesopotamia in the first place? What was Riley doing there?
Eternal optimist that I am I still hoped for redemption in the end, but there was none! It was even crazier, more disjointed than the rest of the book. I won't give up on this author, but will be far more cautious about my selections of her work in future.
October 29, 2010
This book is a little odd. I wouldn't recommend it for Sena Jeter Naslund's fans of straight historical fiction. It felt a little disjointed at the beginning and it's a strange mix of contemporary and speculative fiction with forays into art, religion, and a kind of thriller which I thought was the most unworkable part of the story. I like books that make me think about the big picture and I enjoyed the development of the characters. The portion of the book set in modern day Eden was the best part and is largely why I'm awarding it four stars but I can understand why others have not been as thrilled.
August 16, 2021
Wow, coming in to write a review, I notice the average rating is 2.8 - and that is with my four stars. A few things to mention about why I picked up this book, before I tell you what I thought about it. I actually liked it a lot! Took me a while to get into the audio, and I didn't much like her voice for the first third to half. I accepted her better when I played it faster, at 1.2.
I had a patient who I met with for many years who was a big reader, English major in literature, who ended up in Library Sciences. She told me that Sena Jeter Naslund was her favorite all time go to author. In fact, she recommended Abundance, which is the only other Naslund book I had ever read. I picked up Abundance for one reason or another, and I believe if I am not incorrect, I read that for the year that I spent time in Paris and France for Marie Antoinnette - Or now that I am thinking, this was the Hapsburg Princess of Austria, that started in Paris. That feels more right to me. In any case, she was right - I loved Abundance. So I was set up to appreciate the breadth and style of this author.
Second, some of you know that Eve is my historical fiction remarkable woman/person of the year. This is the second year I have done it, and I have learned something. It is easy to get sick of a remarkable person. Even one you like and who is compelling. By the end of last year, I was quite done with Cleopatra, even from all the different angles. I have enjoyed Eve, and a lot is left to the imagination. Watching each of these authors portray her, has been fascinating, and there is a lot of interesting spiritual perspective on what is sin, and Eden, and love, and nature, and beauty, and connectivity, and creation, and a lot about what is mothering.
But this one, is actually not about the original Adam and Eve, in fact its set in 2020, although there is a beginning set up of 2017. There is of course some connection to the original storyline, and there is the introduction of gnostic gospels (did I get that right?) found in 1945, that makes the suggestion of the original Genesis, Adam and Eve Creation Story, suggest that there were even earlier versions, and alternate versions. There is an interfaith trio of folks that invite the thriller aspect, a group called Perpetuity that has folks who agree from multiple faiths that alternate versions must not exist - and that threatens our entire Judeo-Christian-Muslim origins. This group is after our heroine, and later heroine and heroes who are trying to protect both the gospels and a flash drive. A flash drive they want to destroy, as it suggests we are not alone - the likely presence of extra terrestrial life. Therein outlines a backdrop to the story. There's a lot more though.
Here's where the story turns crazy. Lucy, carrying the gospels and the flashdrive, inevitably is on the run and flying a small aircraft and lands in a lush uninhabited jungle, where she is likely believed to be dead. She meets a man named Adam, a likely war/PTSD veteran, who in his confusion and mental illness, believes he is living alone on the earth, in Eden. When he meets Lucy, he assumes she is his Eve, and he takes care of her, nurses her back to health, and they live in Eden for quite a while together, contemplating the world. As an art therapist, and someone who understood and questioned things about the universe given her own background, this is healing for them both. Eventually they meet up with others who also teach and lead them to things, and the father daughter set who entrusted them with the gospels, becomes a whole 'nother area of exploration around background and belief, and risks, and artistry, and family, and love, and there are falling Piano's, parachutes, early cave art, a Sufi Arabic father, eventually a chase, and then things settle out. There is loss, there is healing, there is violence, there is beauty, and there is love, and there is anger. Creation and destruction, and they begin to live the answers to the questions they each seek.
I can't deny it was a little strange at times, but hey it was a totally different plot twist, and you just sort have to go with it. At least it was original. I actually came to really like it and its beauty. And to be honest, I am glad it was a more contemporary Adam and Eve, which led us to contemplate questions that are both contemporary and from ancient sources. I loved the idea of early storytelling and knowledge. Cave art and gospels, as compared with flashdrives, and quantum physics and the idea of extraterrestrial life. And the ultimate question, which is beyond are we alone... What if what we believed has other realities and angles? Would you fight to protect your vision, version, of what you believe? Why is there war, and how do you heal from violence and injustice? What is worth living and dying for. The perfect Eve book, at the near end of the year, because she kept reminding us, and Adam. She isn't Eve - she is Lucy. Which turns out is better, and really healing, and ultimately imperfect and beautiful and righteous, even in her own path of grief to love, and questions to resolution.
If this is for you, it will call to you. Otherwise, thank you for taking the time to read my review and my on-going thoughts on the Year of Eve. I invite you to write to me if you read the book and you had thoughts. If you liked it, hated it, was confused by it, what have you. I'd still love to know. If you love this author for other books, and which ones? What you thought about the spiritual part? Some of it was crazy and didn't hang together, but the premise was just so damn original. You can tell, because usually my reviews tell you almost nothing about the premise. But I didn't tell you anything more than what you might find alluded to or spoken about in the book jacket or synopsis. The rest, you just have to experience for yourself.
I had a patient who I met with for many years who was a big reader, English major in literature, who ended up in Library Sciences. She told me that Sena Jeter Naslund was her favorite all time go to author. In fact, she recommended Abundance, which is the only other Naslund book I had ever read. I picked up Abundance for one reason or another, and I believe if I am not incorrect, I read that for the year that I spent time in Paris and France for Marie Antoinnette - Or now that I am thinking, this was the Hapsburg Princess of Austria, that started in Paris. That feels more right to me. In any case, she was right - I loved Abundance. So I was set up to appreciate the breadth and style of this author.
Second, some of you know that Eve is my historical fiction remarkable woman/person of the year. This is the second year I have done it, and I have learned something. It is easy to get sick of a remarkable person. Even one you like and who is compelling. By the end of last year, I was quite done with Cleopatra, even from all the different angles. I have enjoyed Eve, and a lot is left to the imagination. Watching each of these authors portray her, has been fascinating, and there is a lot of interesting spiritual perspective on what is sin, and Eden, and love, and nature, and beauty, and connectivity, and creation, and a lot about what is mothering.
But this one, is actually not about the original Adam and Eve, in fact its set in 2020, although there is a beginning set up of 2017. There is of course some connection to the original storyline, and there is the introduction of gnostic gospels (did I get that right?) found in 1945, that makes the suggestion of the original Genesis, Adam and Eve Creation Story, suggest that there were even earlier versions, and alternate versions. There is an interfaith trio of folks that invite the thriller aspect, a group called Perpetuity that has folks who agree from multiple faiths that alternate versions must not exist - and that threatens our entire Judeo-Christian-Muslim origins. This group is after our heroine, and later heroine and heroes who are trying to protect both the gospels and a flash drive. A flash drive they want to destroy, as it suggests we are not alone - the likely presence of extra terrestrial life. Therein outlines a backdrop to the story. There's a lot more though.
Here's where the story turns crazy. Lucy, carrying the gospels and the flashdrive, inevitably is on the run and flying a small aircraft and lands in a lush uninhabited jungle, where she is likely believed to be dead. She meets a man named Adam, a likely war/PTSD veteran, who in his confusion and mental illness, believes he is living alone on the earth, in Eden. When he meets Lucy, he assumes she is his Eve, and he takes care of her, nurses her back to health, and they live in Eden for quite a while together, contemplating the world. As an art therapist, and someone who understood and questioned things about the universe given her own background, this is healing for them both. Eventually they meet up with others who also teach and lead them to things, and the father daughter set who entrusted them with the gospels, becomes a whole 'nother area of exploration around background and belief, and risks, and artistry, and family, and love, and there are falling Piano's, parachutes, early cave art, a Sufi Arabic father, eventually a chase, and then things settle out. There is loss, there is healing, there is violence, there is beauty, and there is love, and there is anger. Creation and destruction, and they begin to live the answers to the questions they each seek.
I can't deny it was a little strange at times, but hey it was a totally different plot twist, and you just sort have to go with it. At least it was original. I actually came to really like it and its beauty. And to be honest, I am glad it was a more contemporary Adam and Eve, which led us to contemplate questions that are both contemporary and from ancient sources. I loved the idea of early storytelling and knowledge. Cave art and gospels, as compared with flashdrives, and quantum physics and the idea of extraterrestrial life. And the ultimate question, which is beyond are we alone... What if what we believed has other realities and angles? Would you fight to protect your vision, version, of what you believe? Why is there war, and how do you heal from violence and injustice? What is worth living and dying for. The perfect Eve book, at the near end of the year, because she kept reminding us, and Adam. She isn't Eve - she is Lucy. Which turns out is better, and really healing, and ultimately imperfect and beautiful and righteous, even in her own path of grief to love, and questions to resolution.
If this is for you, it will call to you. Otherwise, thank you for taking the time to read my review and my on-going thoughts on the Year of Eve. I invite you to write to me if you read the book and you had thoughts. If you liked it, hated it, was confused by it, what have you. I'd still love to know. If you love this author for other books, and which ones? What you thought about the spiritual part? Some of it was crazy and didn't hang together, but the premise was just so damn original. You can tell, because usually my reviews tell you almost nothing about the premise. But I didn't tell you anything more than what you might find alluded to or spoken about in the book jacket or synopsis. The rest, you just have to experience for yourself.
July 2, 2010
This book included a collection of very, very random things - a blue man, war, nudity, religious conflict, extraterrestrial life, a cheating spouse, a feral boy, cave paintings, sacred codex, a memory stick, a woman who is pilot, seamstress, artist and therapist, death by piano, fashion, a stone vulva, etc. It all comes together through the book, but not very well...and in a hard-to-believe way.
I loved "Ahab's Wife" and was lukewarm with "Abundance", this was the end of a downwards trend. I don't think I'm going to read a book by this author again. The author still had her wonderful descriptions, but they distracted me from the plot, sub-plot, the description of the character's history, the sub-sub-plot, the flashback, the hallucination, the sub-sub-sub-plot. Once in a while, I hit a section that I really enjoyed, just for the scene to change AGAIN.
There is a lot of discussion about the book of Genesis, but I have to admit to skimming over most of it. By the time the discussion got serious, I had pretty much given up hope on this book.
I loved "Ahab's Wife" and was lukewarm with "Abundance", this was the end of a downwards trend. I don't think I'm going to read a book by this author again. The author still had her wonderful descriptions, but they distracted me from the plot, sub-plot, the description of the character's history, the sub-sub-plot, the flashback, the hallucination, the sub-sub-sub-plot. Once in a while, I hit a section that I really enjoyed, just for the scene to change AGAIN.
There is a lot of discussion about the book of Genesis, but I have to admit to skimming over most of it. By the time the discussion got serious, I had pretty much given up hope on this book.
February 29, 2012
I picked up this book from the library expecting an interesting read from a well-regarded novelist. I do enjoy books that analyze biblical themes and I am open-minded about the different perspectives and forms this can take. This book fell far short of my expectations and easily lands into the category of the worst books I have ever read. It suffers from inconsistent tone, flat characters,unconvincing dialogue, and a plot devoid of any real suspense or surprise.
The section of the novel that focuses on Eden is the most interesting section of the book, though the author leaves loose ends as she moves from Eden back to the chase scene narratives that dominate the rest of the book. There are philosophical discussions of faith, art and fidelity. None of them reach the potential depths such worthy topics deserve. It is rare for me to root against the protagonist of a novel, but the main character here is not worthy of much consideration.
I do not know if this book is an anomaly in the author's collection; however, it does not pique my interest in reading her other books.
The section of the novel that focuses on Eden is the most interesting section of the book, though the author leaves loose ends as she moves from Eden back to the chase scene narratives that dominate the rest of the book. There are philosophical discussions of faith, art and fidelity. None of them reach the potential depths such worthy topics deserve. It is rare for me to root against the protagonist of a novel, but the main character here is not worthy of much consideration.
I do not know if this book is an anomaly in the author's collection; however, it does not pique my interest in reading her other books.
March 8, 2024
The brain is wider than the sky.
-Emily Dickinson
From this valley they say you are going . . .
Come and stay by my side if you love me. Do not hasten to bid me adieu . . .
Adam & Eve is an unusual novel that had been sitting on my bookshelf since 2011. Finally got around to reading Adam & Eve in 2020 during the world-wide pandemic. Curious that the year 2020 plays a significant role in a novel published ten years earlier. Because my library was closed, I had to dive deep into my personal bookshelves in order to retain some sense of sanity. Of course, for many readers this is probably not the book of choice for sanity.
I guess I expected more along the extra-terrestrial line of thinking and less of meeting Adam & Eve naked in the biblical garden of Eden. This book is quite bizarre and unique. I'm glad I haven't read any other books by the author, because apparently this work ventures outside her regular terrain, and disappointed most of her fans.
I was thinking I might donate Adam & Eve to my neighborhood Free Little Library, but now I think I might keep the book since it's so weird! My neighbors probably wouldn't appreciate Adam & Eve anyway. There were times when I was very intrigued and considered a 5 star rating and at other times a 3 star rating. I settled on 4 stars. I would recommend that any reader considering this book, approach Adam & Eve with an open mind. Good Luck!
2021 Update: Good thing I kept the book since I ended up re-reading Adam & Eve almost exactly one year after my first reading. Dan Brown meets The Cave of Forgotten Dreams in this highly sexual novel.
Reread in 2024 and increased rating to 5 stars.
Related Works: The Waste Land and Other Poems, Leaves of Grass, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass
Favorite Passages:
When The Piano Falls
From the sky, at the rate of 32.2 feet per second, a grand piano is hurtling down like a huge black bird of prey over our upturned faces. In that moment is a beginning and an end, alpha and omega, Genesis and Revelation.
Because we always ask, like any logical child, "Yes, but what came before the beginning and after the end?" I start with the year 2017, three years before I fell into Adam's world and lived with him in the shade of an apple tree.
The instant before the piano fell, from a block away, I saw only a curiosity in the Amsterdam sky: a grand piano, aloft. To the best of my rapidly moving feet, the words of the White Rabbit - "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date" - played through my mind from Alice in Wonderland.
_______
And yes, because of the reality of mass murder, I wanted Thom to buy himself a grand piano.
_______
"Sometimes," he said soberly, "I think we should achieve peace on earth before we deal with extraterrestrial life. It would be a sign that we're ready. Fission and fusion, the bombs, came too soon."
_______
. . . I wanted to understand the immaterial realm - what were thought and feeling? What did being human mean?
A Life in Ramallah
"I'm changing to mathematics," Eyad answered.
"Why?"
"It's a purer world. It has no reference to physical realities."
_______
Passage to Egypt
I rejoiced in their achievements. That they could create - begin, develop, and finish something! Wasn't that the very template of sanity? At least of continuity, which was one of the hallmarks of sanity.
_______
"'Twenty-twenty,' Thom used to say to me, 'might be the Year of Clear Vision.' May you prove him right."
_______
I rather liked the idea of being at risk. It made me feel more alert.
_______
My gaze followed a north-flowing bubble on the river. "Where are you going, and where have you been?" I muttered to the waters of the Nile surrounding the boat.
_______
When I looked at the broken columns and damaged images of temple ruins, I only felt how broken and damaged I was. It was only as I stared at the waters of the Nile that I felt any peace. A river can be like a great life-supporting artery flowing through the body of a country. The Mississippi, the Nil, the Thames, the Seine, the Danube, the Rhine, the Amazon, the Ganges, and the Yangtze. Such a river is an artery with its own pulse. Such a river is its own heart as well as that of the land it parts and nourishes. I wished for such a conduit of life to flow through me and enliven all my parts. Or some ocean to rock and lave me. A tour of ruins, however noble or ambitious, was not enough.
________
It was a whim, an impulse. No, it was part of a desire to be free. I wanted to test myself as an independent woman.
IGTIYAL!
. . . mere men had struggled for intellectual ascendancy in establishing what was sacred, and they had eliminated those books with alternative views.
_______
"Skepticism is a path," my retired neighbor the dear old professor had cautioned, "not a destination."
_______
From the bottom of a framed picture of the current president-dictator cascaded a ladder of translations of the word Welcome.
"Thank you," I said out loud to the dictator and wondered if I were losing my mind.
_______
The Gospel of Philip suggested that Adam and Eve were originally one androgynous figure.
______
I, too, believed in the ineffable. As an art therapist, I believed that the hand that draws inner realities is the friend of an anguished soul. A picture can evoke what cannot be said.
______
. . . but to weigh any word as solid gold is a snare and delusion. Admire language as we admire pyrite, for its lovey glitter.
_______
"Here in the East, often you must look twice - or more - to see the truth."
_______
If the codex concealed in the retrofitted French horn case would cause people - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - to find unity in reading Genesis less literally, then I was all for it.
The Dragon's Neck
The nylon panties placed over his head by his torturers had comforted him.
_______
In the state hospital in Idaho, on the stationary bike facing east, long ago Adam had sometimes pedaled hard to pull up the sun. They had not known then what he was doing. There was a translucent, almost invisible thread connecting the sprocket of the bicycle to the sun. With the action of his legs, he had made the sun rise, reeling it up so that they would all benefit from its heat and light. Adam's morning job had been to wind up the sun while its spread its wings like a golden bird rising from its nest behind the eastern mountains.
_______
He looked for yesterday but could not find the seam in the air that would allow him to slip backward in time.
AIRPLANE!
"Fly me back to childhood," I whispered to it. "Let me try again."
In the Garden
Adam knew that all the animals were inside himself. They lived in his head, and they were small enough to curl up inside the convolutions of his brain, even the elephant and the giraffe. He would have liked to draw them.
In the small space between his skull and his brain, insects buzzed, cicadas and locusts. Grasshoppers such as might eat up all the wheat whirred and jumped within his synapses, but none of them gave him pain - not even the lion whose roar blasted from his ears into the waiting air.
_______
"Fox!" Adam shrieked, and high in the trees the cherries trembled on their stems. God intensified their color and gave their smooth cheeks a sheen.
Then Adam remembered the sharp teeth of the fox and how it had been, long ago, in Idaho.
_______
Fox! He howled and beat the animal in his chest with his fist.
For the Beauty of the Earth
I knew I was hurt, burned across my back and scalp, but for the moment I felt nothing but relief. And triumph. I was alive. Lucky.
Remember your name is Lucy, and Lucy is part of the word lucky. It's always lucky just to be alive. Words my grandmother once said to me.
I sat in the water and surveyed my situation. What I saw around me seemed cut from the fabric of pure simplicity - blue sky, green sea. Unspeakably beautiful. More: my eyes glorified the sandy yellow neutrality of the beach. Cloud billows without motion hung in the blue. Lucky merely to be alive. Green water incessantly rocking like the sublime comfort of Grandmother's soft sway. Lucky.
Gethsemane
From the beginning, I realized I had fallen into a place that was no place. Like a person in a Rousseau painting, I inhabited a landscape and a situation that combined realities with imaginative vision.
Lucy as Eve
"In Greek mythology," he mused, "sometimes the honorably defeated were placed in the night sky to become constellations."
________
I imagined Adam crossing their constellation; he was a planet, a wanderer through the night sky, not a fixed star. A loose cannon. Someone who wrestled with his demons at night and cried out when they pinched him or scorched him with their breath. Someone whose day-self carried all the sweetness of the honeycomb. Who called me Eve.
________
"It's good to be able to take care of somebody."
"I'm not that sort of woman," I said. "I don't want a man to take care of me. I take care of myself."
________
In the weeks that followed, delusion and daze haunted my mind. I seemed always to be awakening, and always to be wondering if what I remembered was a dream or reality. Wonder seemed the best state of mind. It was less irritating than certainty, less taxing than the process of deciding - anything.
Pierre Saad
"There is a certain freedom in widowhood, which she fears to lose."
RECOVERY
When I opened the door to the cupboard of memory, its shelves were bare, with one exception.
________
While I walked I visited memories - only happy ones, first with Thom, then with my grandmother. The sequence and images from the past seemed almost palpable, as though I could handle them. I felt as though I were folding clean laundry, fresh and warm from the dryer. Sorting my memories had something of the same soothing, almost mindless rhythm. I was tidying up the past, making it as nice as possible, getting ready, perhaps, to put it away.
The American Patient
This place is where we come for peace and healing. Pieces of the past are here - gardens and trees. We call it Eden.
Life of a Sufi
As an aging man, after he journeyed to Cairo and became full of natural wisdom and of Sufi learning, he would know they were the same - the depth of his heart and the height of the stars. It was those unattainable and distant points of light that made the flatness of the earth meaningful to him. What was life if it had only length and breadth like a rectangle drawn on a flat of sand? No, it was the third dimension, that of height or depth (they were infinitely the same), that he had sought and found.
Even when he was still young, he first found meaningfulness as height in the heavens above when he stood watch at night alone on the dunes with animals. He had thought of the shepherds in the story of the birth of the prophet Jesus and how with his birth a brightness had come to their minds and their inner voices had been allowed to speak and sing, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."
Second, he had found transcendence in the depth of his heart. Sometimes he told himself his own story (when he had no child near enough to listen):
. . . . because they do not know reality but only these empty visible forms, these shapes we use as guideposts.
_______
That is my story. This is the end of the story that swooped me up in its wings.
_______
Voices braid together to tell a story. Sometimes one section disappears behind another. How many strands are there, and where do they come from and how does one story disappear or emerge unexpectedly?
_______
For almost forty thousand years, images begat images through the hands of mankind, and most men went away and forgot the cave art and did not understand even what it was. Incised or painted on an envelope of rock, the mail was left undelivered. Only a few people knew the rock images were addressed to them and to their children's children.
_______
"What will it mean," Thom had asked through his letters, "if we can picture a universe with others Out There? What will it mean about humanness?"
The Road to Baghdad
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn form Emmanuel's veins.
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
_______
"God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to conceal." Then he spurted again with painful mirth.
Wonders - was that the word? Or was it horrors?
_______
"Come down to Kew in lilac time
In lilac time, in lilac time.
Come down to Kew in lilac time -
It isn't far from London," she quoted.
"Shakespeare?" he asked.
"No. Alfred Noyes. Also wrote 'The Highwayman.'"
"'The road was ribbon of moonlight . . .,'" he quoted.
"No, it isn't," she said. "The road is a white-hot poker."
_______
Among the trees, he saw shaggy movements with humps. Two creatures. One golden as a sand pile, the other dark, almost black. Two camels. Two wild camels. He named them Day and Night.
He sat Eve on her feet.
"Look, darling," he said. "Wild camels, among the trees."
_______
But look at the stars.
A starry, moonless night is the most blessed of all nights.
Diamonds.
Worlds unseen.
Stars galore.
The word galore - it comes from some place deeper than the throat.
From the belly of God. When he's generous.
The French Quartet
"I have no idea how he found us. He's very dear. A creature from another universe."
LOVE AND ART
Was a camera hidden in the corner of Thom's glasses? Was he possibly even a spy?
Adam's Dream
Lucy's sentences seemed curved, Adam thought, then straightened like a drawing that wanted to be a portal more than a picture . . .
_______
His story was like an insect, a roly-poly bug that could curl itself into a smooth gray ball concealing its many legs like small hairs along its side and also obscuring its beginning and its end.
_______
The old man was like a mountain spring, and the words from his lips flowed unceasingly over jagged rocks and smooth, flat stones, over toads and watercress. Minnows swam in his words, and then a gigantic whale whose passing was interminable. Yards and yards of gray whale blocked Adam's vision like the passing of a freight train at a rural crossing, till finally the way was clear and that moving assemblage no longer blocked the vista.
_______
"You don't know what cave paintings have meant to me," Lucy said. She was roused by the imperative to explain. "To me, they're the emblem of the human spirit. When people first knew themselves to be people, not just survivors, they felt the urge to create. Probably they danced and told stories, too, but what have endured for us are the paintings. When I encourage my patients to paint and draw, I'm encouraging them to know the root of their humanness and that they're not alone. Their work bridges the space between them and any other human."
_______
Below was the land of nightmare. Everywhere, just under the surface, pulsed the possibility of war or violence.
_______
Cellar door. Hadn't he read somewhere that scientists had determined that phrase to be the most euphonious in the English language?
_______
To pass form the basement into the underworld, they each folded themselves in half and entered the mouth of the earth through the stone lips. When he bent himself to enter, Adam impulsively turned and backed through. "Breech," he said softly. "Ass-backward I am reborn into the realm of darkness." He would would ask Lucy if Shakespeare had written that. Macbeth?
"Are there witches here?" Lucy joked.
Pierre answered that he thought not, but shamans perhaps.
WITHIN THE EARTH
When you recognize tenderness, it comes to dwell in you. The painting of a tongue is a tongue speaking to you. The painting is a gentle, silent licking of your soul.
_______
"Over thousands of years, the artists - shamans, whoever they were - continued to draw in the same style, to copy the drawings created thousands of years before their time. It's the same with stories. Stories begat stories and were passed through the air from lips into ears until they became the written sacred texts our cultures hold so dear, our holy books, our bibles."
Pierre's words rattled and fell, like stones exploring a crevasse.
_______
"I believe this: As soon as we were human, it was part of our nature and our necessity to create art."
_______
The cave's corridor fit his shoulders like a cape too heavy to bear. He would walk upward toward openness, remembering the grassy plains spreading around the Garden of Eden, and how the sunshine drenched everything. How he and Lucy had come together in tenderness and respect under the starry sky on the road to Baghdad.
_______
He walked a maze of branching memory, but there was a wholeness, a continuity, to the narrative. One foot followed another.
_______
"A path speaks horizontal, a stair speaks jagged vertical."
BOUSTROPHEDON
"I am no longer a vegetarian," Adam announced.
________
"On the far shore of the underground lake is the sanctuary where dreams originate." He had walked into a cavern full of fantastic shapes that could become whatever the viewer wished, "smooth brown ghosts, some knee-high, some towering high as giants. Very smooth, glazed." In the next chamber, he had been surrounded by the glittering teeth of stalactites and stalagmites encrusted with crystals.
"Because of your words," I exclaimed, "now we journey there too. We didn't cross the lake but you make us see."
_______
"Whether told or written, a story lives in moving time; the abode of a picture is timeless in space, whether real or imagine," I promptly answered.
"And dance is the art form that dwells in time and place at once," Arielle said.
How To Read A Sacred Text
"Perhaps the historical truth is more complex."
_______
"Because we live in our own time, we must each create new myths to represent the truth."
_______
Perhaps there are other realities not only invisible to sight but also unapprehendable by touch and by all the senses.
EPILOGUE
"This freedom, this authenticity."
-Emily Dickinson
From this valley they say you are going . . .
Come and stay by my side if you love me. Do not hasten to bid me adieu . . .
Adam & Eve is an unusual novel that had been sitting on my bookshelf since 2011. Finally got around to reading Adam & Eve in 2020 during the world-wide pandemic. Curious that the year 2020 plays a significant role in a novel published ten years earlier. Because my library was closed, I had to dive deep into my personal bookshelves in order to retain some sense of sanity. Of course, for many readers this is probably not the book of choice for sanity.
I guess I expected more along the extra-terrestrial line of thinking and less of meeting Adam & Eve naked in the biblical garden of Eden. This book is quite bizarre and unique. I'm glad I haven't read any other books by the author, because apparently this work ventures outside her regular terrain, and disappointed most of her fans.
I was thinking I might donate Adam & Eve to my neighborhood Free Little Library, but now I think I might keep the book since it's so weird! My neighbors probably wouldn't appreciate Adam & Eve anyway. There were times when I was very intrigued and considered a 5 star rating and at other times a 3 star rating. I settled on 4 stars. I would recommend that any reader considering this book, approach Adam & Eve with an open mind. Good Luck!
2021 Update: Good thing I kept the book since I ended up re-reading Adam & Eve almost exactly one year after my first reading. Dan Brown meets The Cave of Forgotten Dreams in this highly sexual novel.
Reread in 2024 and increased rating to 5 stars.
Related Works: The Waste Land and Other Poems, Leaves of Grass, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass
Favorite Passages:
When The Piano Falls
From the sky, at the rate of 32.2 feet per second, a grand piano is hurtling down like a huge black bird of prey over our upturned faces. In that moment is a beginning and an end, alpha and omega, Genesis and Revelation.
Because we always ask, like any logical child, "Yes, but what came before the beginning and after the end?" I start with the year 2017, three years before I fell into Adam's world and lived with him in the shade of an apple tree.
The instant before the piano fell, from a block away, I saw only a curiosity in the Amsterdam sky: a grand piano, aloft. To the best of my rapidly moving feet, the words of the White Rabbit - "I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date" - played through my mind from Alice in Wonderland.
_______
And yes, because of the reality of mass murder, I wanted Thom to buy himself a grand piano.
_______
"Sometimes," he said soberly, "I think we should achieve peace on earth before we deal with extraterrestrial life. It would be a sign that we're ready. Fission and fusion, the bombs, came too soon."
_______
. . . I wanted to understand the immaterial realm - what were thought and feeling? What did being human mean?
A Life in Ramallah
"I'm changing to mathematics," Eyad answered.
"Why?"
"It's a purer world. It has no reference to physical realities."
_______
Passage to Egypt
I rejoiced in their achievements. That they could create - begin, develop, and finish something! Wasn't that the very template of sanity? At least of continuity, which was one of the hallmarks of sanity.
_______
"'Twenty-twenty,' Thom used to say to me, 'might be the Year of Clear Vision.' May you prove him right."
_______
I rather liked the idea of being at risk. It made me feel more alert.
_______
My gaze followed a north-flowing bubble on the river. "Where are you going, and where have you been?" I muttered to the waters of the Nile surrounding the boat.
_______
When I looked at the broken columns and damaged images of temple ruins, I only felt how broken and damaged I was. It was only as I stared at the waters of the Nile that I felt any peace. A river can be like a great life-supporting artery flowing through the body of a country. The Mississippi, the Nil, the Thames, the Seine, the Danube, the Rhine, the Amazon, the Ganges, and the Yangtze. Such a river is an artery with its own pulse. Such a river is its own heart as well as that of the land it parts and nourishes. I wished for such a conduit of life to flow through me and enliven all my parts. Or some ocean to rock and lave me. A tour of ruins, however noble or ambitious, was not enough.
________
It was a whim, an impulse. No, it was part of a desire to be free. I wanted to test myself as an independent woman.
IGTIYAL!
. . . mere men had struggled for intellectual ascendancy in establishing what was sacred, and they had eliminated those books with alternative views.
_______
"Skepticism is a path," my retired neighbor the dear old professor had cautioned, "not a destination."
_______
From the bottom of a framed picture of the current president-dictator cascaded a ladder of translations of the word Welcome.
"Thank you," I said out loud to the dictator and wondered if I were losing my mind.
_______
The Gospel of Philip suggested that Adam and Eve were originally one androgynous figure.
______
I, too, believed in the ineffable. As an art therapist, I believed that the hand that draws inner realities is the friend of an anguished soul. A picture can evoke what cannot be said.
______
. . . but to weigh any word as solid gold is a snare and delusion. Admire language as we admire pyrite, for its lovey glitter.
_______
"Here in the East, often you must look twice - or more - to see the truth."
_______
If the codex concealed in the retrofitted French horn case would cause people - Christians, Jews, and Muslims - to find unity in reading Genesis less literally, then I was all for it.
The Dragon's Neck
The nylon panties placed over his head by his torturers had comforted him.
_______
In the state hospital in Idaho, on the stationary bike facing east, long ago Adam had sometimes pedaled hard to pull up the sun. They had not known then what he was doing. There was a translucent, almost invisible thread connecting the sprocket of the bicycle to the sun. With the action of his legs, he had made the sun rise, reeling it up so that they would all benefit from its heat and light. Adam's morning job had been to wind up the sun while its spread its wings like a golden bird rising from its nest behind the eastern mountains.
_______
He looked for yesterday but could not find the seam in the air that would allow him to slip backward in time.
AIRPLANE!
"Fly me back to childhood," I whispered to it. "Let me try again."
In the Garden
Adam knew that all the animals were inside himself. They lived in his head, and they were small enough to curl up inside the convolutions of his brain, even the elephant and the giraffe. He would have liked to draw them.
In the small space between his skull and his brain, insects buzzed, cicadas and locusts. Grasshoppers such as might eat up all the wheat whirred and jumped within his synapses, but none of them gave him pain - not even the lion whose roar blasted from his ears into the waiting air.
_______
"Fox!" Adam shrieked, and high in the trees the cherries trembled on their stems. God intensified their color and gave their smooth cheeks a sheen.
Then Adam remembered the sharp teeth of the fox and how it had been, long ago, in Idaho.
_______
Fox! He howled and beat the animal in his chest with his fist.
For the Beauty of the Earth
I knew I was hurt, burned across my back and scalp, but for the moment I felt nothing but relief. And triumph. I was alive. Lucky.
Remember your name is Lucy, and Lucy is part of the word lucky. It's always lucky just to be alive. Words my grandmother once said to me.
I sat in the water and surveyed my situation. What I saw around me seemed cut from the fabric of pure simplicity - blue sky, green sea. Unspeakably beautiful. More: my eyes glorified the sandy yellow neutrality of the beach. Cloud billows without motion hung in the blue. Lucky merely to be alive. Green water incessantly rocking like the sublime comfort of Grandmother's soft sway. Lucky.
Gethsemane
From the beginning, I realized I had fallen into a place that was no place. Like a person in a Rousseau painting, I inhabited a landscape and a situation that combined realities with imaginative vision.
Lucy as Eve
"In Greek mythology," he mused, "sometimes the honorably defeated were placed in the night sky to become constellations."
________
I imagined Adam crossing their constellation; he was a planet, a wanderer through the night sky, not a fixed star. A loose cannon. Someone who wrestled with his demons at night and cried out when they pinched him or scorched him with their breath. Someone whose day-self carried all the sweetness of the honeycomb. Who called me Eve.
________
"It's good to be able to take care of somebody."
"I'm not that sort of woman," I said. "I don't want a man to take care of me. I take care of myself."
________
In the weeks that followed, delusion and daze haunted my mind. I seemed always to be awakening, and always to be wondering if what I remembered was a dream or reality. Wonder seemed the best state of mind. It was less irritating than certainty, less taxing than the process of deciding - anything.
Pierre Saad
"There is a certain freedom in widowhood, which she fears to lose."
RECOVERY
When I opened the door to the cupboard of memory, its shelves were bare, with one exception.
________
While I walked I visited memories - only happy ones, first with Thom, then with my grandmother. The sequence and images from the past seemed almost palpable, as though I could handle them. I felt as though I were folding clean laundry, fresh and warm from the dryer. Sorting my memories had something of the same soothing, almost mindless rhythm. I was tidying up the past, making it as nice as possible, getting ready, perhaps, to put it away.
The American Patient
This place is where we come for peace and healing. Pieces of the past are here - gardens and trees. We call it Eden.
Life of a Sufi
As an aging man, after he journeyed to Cairo and became full of natural wisdom and of Sufi learning, he would know they were the same - the depth of his heart and the height of the stars. It was those unattainable and distant points of light that made the flatness of the earth meaningful to him. What was life if it had only length and breadth like a rectangle drawn on a flat of sand? No, it was the third dimension, that of height or depth (they were infinitely the same), that he had sought and found.
Even when he was still young, he first found meaningfulness as height in the heavens above when he stood watch at night alone on the dunes with animals. He had thought of the shepherds in the story of the birth of the prophet Jesus and how with his birth a brightness had come to their minds and their inner voices had been allowed to speak and sing, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people."
Second, he had found transcendence in the depth of his heart. Sometimes he told himself his own story (when he had no child near enough to listen):
. . . . because they do not know reality but only these empty visible forms, these shapes we use as guideposts.
_______
That is my story. This is the end of the story that swooped me up in its wings.
_______
Voices braid together to tell a story. Sometimes one section disappears behind another. How many strands are there, and where do they come from and how does one story disappear or emerge unexpectedly?
_______
For almost forty thousand years, images begat images through the hands of mankind, and most men went away and forgot the cave art and did not understand even what it was. Incised or painted on an envelope of rock, the mail was left undelivered. Only a few people knew the rock images were addressed to them and to their children's children.
_______
"What will it mean," Thom had asked through his letters, "if we can picture a universe with others Out There? What will it mean about humanness?"
The Road to Baghdad
There is a fountain filled with blood
Drawn form Emmanuel's veins.
And sinners plunged beneath that flood
Lose all their guilty stains.
_______
"God works in mysterious ways, his wonders to conceal." Then he spurted again with painful mirth.
Wonders - was that the word? Or was it horrors?
_______
"Come down to Kew in lilac time
In lilac time, in lilac time.
Come down to Kew in lilac time -
It isn't far from London," she quoted.
"Shakespeare?" he asked.
"No. Alfred Noyes. Also wrote 'The Highwayman.'"
"'The road was ribbon of moonlight . . .,'" he quoted.
"No, it isn't," she said. "The road is a white-hot poker."
_______
Among the trees, he saw shaggy movements with humps. Two creatures. One golden as a sand pile, the other dark, almost black. Two camels. Two wild camels. He named them Day and Night.
He sat Eve on her feet.
"Look, darling," he said. "Wild camels, among the trees."
_______
But look at the stars.
A starry, moonless night is the most blessed of all nights.
Diamonds.
Worlds unseen.
Stars galore.
The word galore - it comes from some place deeper than the throat.
From the belly of God. When he's generous.
The French Quartet
"I have no idea how he found us. He's very dear. A creature from another universe."
LOVE AND ART
Was a camera hidden in the corner of Thom's glasses? Was he possibly even a spy?
Adam's Dream
Lucy's sentences seemed curved, Adam thought, then straightened like a drawing that wanted to be a portal more than a picture . . .
_______
His story was like an insect, a roly-poly bug that could curl itself into a smooth gray ball concealing its many legs like small hairs along its side and also obscuring its beginning and its end.
_______
The old man was like a mountain spring, and the words from his lips flowed unceasingly over jagged rocks and smooth, flat stones, over toads and watercress. Minnows swam in his words, and then a gigantic whale whose passing was interminable. Yards and yards of gray whale blocked Adam's vision like the passing of a freight train at a rural crossing, till finally the way was clear and that moving assemblage no longer blocked the vista.
_______
"You don't know what cave paintings have meant to me," Lucy said. She was roused by the imperative to explain. "To me, they're the emblem of the human spirit. When people first knew themselves to be people, not just survivors, they felt the urge to create. Probably they danced and told stories, too, but what have endured for us are the paintings. When I encourage my patients to paint and draw, I'm encouraging them to know the root of their humanness and that they're not alone. Their work bridges the space between them and any other human."
_______
Below was the land of nightmare. Everywhere, just under the surface, pulsed the possibility of war or violence.
_______
Cellar door. Hadn't he read somewhere that scientists had determined that phrase to be the most euphonious in the English language?
_______
To pass form the basement into the underworld, they each folded themselves in half and entered the mouth of the earth through the stone lips. When he bent himself to enter, Adam impulsively turned and backed through. "Breech," he said softly. "Ass-backward I am reborn into the realm of darkness." He would would ask Lucy if Shakespeare had written that. Macbeth?
"Are there witches here?" Lucy joked.
Pierre answered that he thought not, but shamans perhaps.
WITHIN THE EARTH
When you recognize tenderness, it comes to dwell in you. The painting of a tongue is a tongue speaking to you. The painting is a gentle, silent licking of your soul.
_______
"Over thousands of years, the artists - shamans, whoever they were - continued to draw in the same style, to copy the drawings created thousands of years before their time. It's the same with stories. Stories begat stories and were passed through the air from lips into ears until they became the written sacred texts our cultures hold so dear, our holy books, our bibles."
Pierre's words rattled and fell, like stones exploring a crevasse.
_______
"I believe this: As soon as we were human, it was part of our nature and our necessity to create art."
_______
The cave's corridor fit his shoulders like a cape too heavy to bear. He would walk upward toward openness, remembering the grassy plains spreading around the Garden of Eden, and how the sunshine drenched everything. How he and Lucy had come together in tenderness and respect under the starry sky on the road to Baghdad.
_______
He walked a maze of branching memory, but there was a wholeness, a continuity, to the narrative. One foot followed another.
_______
"A path speaks horizontal, a stair speaks jagged vertical."
BOUSTROPHEDON
"I am no longer a vegetarian," Adam announced.
________
"On the far shore of the underground lake is the sanctuary where dreams originate." He had walked into a cavern full of fantastic shapes that could become whatever the viewer wished, "smooth brown ghosts, some knee-high, some towering high as giants. Very smooth, glazed." In the next chamber, he had been surrounded by the glittering teeth of stalactites and stalagmites encrusted with crystals.
"Because of your words," I exclaimed, "now we journey there too. We didn't cross the lake but you make us see."
_______
"Whether told or written, a story lives in moving time; the abode of a picture is timeless in space, whether real or imagine," I promptly answered.
"And dance is the art form that dwells in time and place at once," Arielle said.
How To Read A Sacred Text
"Perhaps the historical truth is more complex."
_______
"Because we live in our own time, we must each create new myths to represent the truth."
_______
Perhaps there are other realities not only invisible to sight but also unapprehendable by touch and by all the senses.
EPILOGUE
"This freedom, this authenticity."
June 16, 2021
I am somewhat surprised to see this book rated so lowly on Goodreads. I think it has a lot to do with the author establishing first with "Ahab's Wife," a historical fiction novel, and this book is worlds apart from that. This read would be more like a 3.5 stat read for me, but I'll get into what I think was and wasn't working:
The main thing that caught my attention was the overall flatness of the main character, Lucy. I feel like we receive bits and pieces of her background that were created in a void just to give her life, such as her two childhood friends that were mentioned throughout the novel yet never seen. Adam was more visceral, and I also loved the characterization of Pierre and Arielle. These were the characters I latched onto. As for the concept of this story, it does lean more into the discovery of the biblical codex than of extraterrestrial life. Thankfully, I'm a fan of both premises (being a science fiction writer as well as a Religious Studies major). I think at times the book strayed from the codex and how the characters felt about it/how it would change the nature of religious thought if it were to be publicized, but I personally liked falling into these odd spaces of human prehistory. The cave scenes and ultimately the end of the novel were quite satisfactory.
Honestly, I picked this book up without checking the ratings (though I checked them after). I wouldn't have bought it had I seen that it had a 2.8, so I'm letting this be a lesson to me that I don't have to agree with others' opinions. I'm glad I didn't go with the masses on this one. I even chose to read it now as a "what not to do" when writing about topical matters considering that it didn't seem to resonate with people as is, but it seems that mission has failed since I ended up enjoying this book.
The main thing that caught my attention was the overall flatness of the main character, Lucy. I feel like we receive bits and pieces of her background that were created in a void just to give her life, such as her two childhood friends that were mentioned throughout the novel yet never seen. Adam was more visceral, and I also loved the characterization of Pierre and Arielle. These were the characters I latched onto. As for the concept of this story, it does lean more into the discovery of the biblical codex than of extraterrestrial life. Thankfully, I'm a fan of both premises (being a science fiction writer as well as a Religious Studies major). I think at times the book strayed from the codex and how the characters felt about it/how it would change the nature of religious thought if it were to be publicized, but I personally liked falling into these odd spaces of human prehistory. The cave scenes and ultimately the end of the novel were quite satisfactory.
Honestly, I picked this book up without checking the ratings (though I checked them after). I wouldn't have bought it had I seen that it had a 2.8, so I'm letting this be a lesson to me that I don't have to agree with others' opinions. I'm glad I didn't go with the masses on this one. I even chose to read it now as a "what not to do" when writing about topical matters considering that it didn't seem to resonate with people as is, but it seems that mission has failed since I ended up enjoying this book.
October 11, 2010
Sena Jeter Nashlund’s latest, Adam & Eve defies description. Part adventure, part mystery, part romance, part thriller, part allegory; a story about religion, art, science, rebirth, and creation, it is nearly impossible to summarize. Due to the fact the Adam & Eve has a trilleresque feel the reader will feel compelled to race to the finish, to the conclusion of the story, however the beauty and true skill of Nashlund’s writing is in what is left unsaid, or better yet, unexplained. An example is the following quote: “The Sufi father taught the boy as he grew that the text is always open to new interpretations because story conjures images, pictures partaking of the infinite transcend both space and time” (pg.216). In Adam & Eve Nashlund has created a thought provoking if perplexing read, that will naturally lend itself to book discussion.
Read
August 10, 2011 "I hope Adam & Eve will not be read as a straight realistic novel. It moves in metaphoric ways. In some ways it is a sort of fable, though I stop short of letting the animals talk. To enjoy the novel, don't expect brick-and-mortar logic. Hang loose and swing imaginatively into the events and settings. The story is partly a dance of ideas."
The quote above is from the P.S. interview with Seta Jeter Naslund at the back of the copy of the book that I received, and it is a quote that helped me immensely in understanding the novel. The New York Journal of Books is prominently quoted on the cover calling Adam & Eve, "a book unlike any other," and I would say that for me, that quote is certainly true. It isn't exactly that I didn't understand the novel, as the plot is relatively straightforward, although unexpected. I just didn't know what to do with it, and still don't a little bit.
Naslund's book begins with Lucy Bergmann, the wife of a prominent astrophysicist, sitting in a hotel room in Amsterdam, as a grand piano falls and kills her husband. Far away, in a desert in Mesopotamia, a young soldier is awakening on a beach in what he considers to be a new Eden. The paths of these two will cross, as Lucy attempts to accomplish a top secret mission, finding herself in the same Eden. Both Lucy and Adam are damaged, and need a way to start anew. Both find a beginning at The Beginning, in Genesis. All of this is very strange, but compelling. I enjoyed reading about the Eden in which the two live, and the relationship that develops between them as they build a new reality, very different from their old ones.
Unfortunately, that isn't the only thing that is going on in the novel. There is a more philosophical, less conspiratorial, DaVinci Code-like plot going on with some ancient sacred texts and a group of religious fundamentalists, Perpetuity, invested in getting their hands on them. There is also the issue of the flash drive that Lucy wears around her neck, containing her husband's discovery of life on other planets, another piece of information that frustrates the fundamentalist worldview. All of these plots are interesting, and for the most part, I enjoyed following all the leads. It is only in the end where tying them all together feels a little messy and hurried, and I was disappointed in the way that some of the relationships turned out, although I won't spoil the ending.
It isn't only in the plotting and premise that Naslund's book is "unlike any other." I found Naslund's writing to be fairly unique as well. There is a poetics to her prose, which often dives in philosophical inquiry, and then quickly surfaces back into a conventional narrative structure. Her descriptions and use of metaphor are often unconventional, and sometimes disconcerting. I would jump out of the narrative for a moment, to wonder why she would describe something that way. Why is there a cow wandering in the desert, for example? The quote I provided above, and reading about Naslund's intentions with the book, helped me to appreciate the style, which in the end, I think is comparable to a dance.
Overall: I appreciated the uniqueness of the book, and would recommend it for anyone who is interested in the sorts of issues it presents: fundamentalism, sacredness, genesis, grief and trauma. However, it has been difficult for me to review the book in any conventional way, because it was an unconventional read and a lot of the terminology I would normally apply seems just a little unfitting.
The quote above is from the P.S. interview with Seta Jeter Naslund at the back of the copy of the book that I received, and it is a quote that helped me immensely in understanding the novel. The New York Journal of Books is prominently quoted on the cover calling Adam & Eve, "a book unlike any other," and I would say that for me, that quote is certainly true. It isn't exactly that I didn't understand the novel, as the plot is relatively straightforward, although unexpected. I just didn't know what to do with it, and still don't a little bit.
Naslund's book begins with Lucy Bergmann, the wife of a prominent astrophysicist, sitting in a hotel room in Amsterdam, as a grand piano falls and kills her husband. Far away, in a desert in Mesopotamia, a young soldier is awakening on a beach in what he considers to be a new Eden. The paths of these two will cross, as Lucy attempts to accomplish a top secret mission, finding herself in the same Eden. Both Lucy and Adam are damaged, and need a way to start anew. Both find a beginning at The Beginning, in Genesis. All of this is very strange, but compelling. I enjoyed reading about the Eden in which the two live, and the relationship that develops between them as they build a new reality, very different from their old ones.
Unfortunately, that isn't the only thing that is going on in the novel. There is a more philosophical, less conspiratorial, DaVinci Code-like plot going on with some ancient sacred texts and a group of religious fundamentalists, Perpetuity, invested in getting their hands on them. There is also the issue of the flash drive that Lucy wears around her neck, containing her husband's discovery of life on other planets, another piece of information that frustrates the fundamentalist worldview. All of these plots are interesting, and for the most part, I enjoyed following all the leads. It is only in the end where tying them all together feels a little messy and hurried, and I was disappointed in the way that some of the relationships turned out, although I won't spoil the ending.
It isn't only in the plotting and premise that Naslund's book is "unlike any other." I found Naslund's writing to be fairly unique as well. There is a poetics to her prose, which often dives in philosophical inquiry, and then quickly surfaces back into a conventional narrative structure. Her descriptions and use of metaphor are often unconventional, and sometimes disconcerting. I would jump out of the narrative for a moment, to wonder why she would describe something that way. Why is there a cow wandering in the desert, for example? The quote I provided above, and reading about Naslund's intentions with the book, helped me to appreciate the style, which in the end, I think is comparable to a dance.
Overall: I appreciated the uniqueness of the book, and would recommend it for anyone who is interested in the sorts of issues it presents: fundamentalism, sacredness, genesis, grief and trauma. However, it has been difficult for me to review the book in any conventional way, because it was an unconventional read and a lot of the terminology I would normally apply seems just a little unfitting.
October 21, 2010
So completely unsatisfying. I was ready to give up about two thirds of the way through, but figured I should finish since I'd already invested that much time in it. It reads like...nothing else I can think of. It's intentionally over the top at points - a man killed by a falling piano, two Americans stranded in an Eden-esque garden in the Middle East, ancient cave paintings, plane crashes, you get the picture. But none of those elements ever really come together to create any meaningful whole. It's just a bunch of pieces that could have been interesting if there was any real thread of connection, or if the characters had been more likable. Or maybe if they had been more unlikable, it would have worked. Some bits seemed like they were supposed to be realistic, other bits like fables, but all missing a moment of realization to bring them together.
As an added bonus, the Biblical commentary felt unsophisticated and distracted from any real storytelling that might have happened in its absence. The big reveal of the translated codex? Completely underwhelming, leaving me confused as to why any of the religious groups would have been so eager to destroy it. The end result felt sensationalistic and flat at the same time. Stay away, unless you're in the mood to get annoyed.
As an added bonus, the Biblical commentary felt unsophisticated and distracted from any real storytelling that might have happened in its absence. The big reveal of the translated codex? Completely underwhelming, leaving me confused as to why any of the religious groups would have been so eager to destroy it. The end result felt sensationalistic and flat at the same time. Stay away, unless you're in the mood to get annoyed.
February 12, 2011
I will start by saying that Ahab's Wife is one of my favorite books, and my high expectations for this book might be the source of my loathing. It is rare that I choose a book and don't end up liking it, but I was so tired of this book by the time it was over! It has some very elegant and beautiful writing, but there was so much schmeared into each paragraph that to me it felt overly self-indulgent, contrived and self-important. The plot of the book could be condensed into a chapter (and I'm not usually too attached to a fast-paced plot). Grrrrrr!
On the other hand, there were some lovely ideas about humanity, art and religion "hidden" in the book. If this had been a non-fiction book I would have loved it, but she had to try and shove her philosophical questions into these caricatures of trite characters- the beautiful exotic Middle Eastern woman, the wise old man, the handsome daring American man, the independent maturing woman. Thanks SJN for making me so cranky. :(
On the other hand, there were some lovely ideas about humanity, art and religion "hidden" in the book. If this had been a non-fiction book I would have loved it, but she had to try and shove her philosophical questions into these caricatures of trite characters- the beautiful exotic Middle Eastern woman, the wise old man, the handsome daring American man, the independent maturing woman. Thanks SJN for making me so cranky. :(
October 15, 2018
don’t know why this book has such an obscenely low rating on here. it was an extremely interesting work of both speculative and biblical fiction. as I was reading I kept thinking of The Red Tent and its equally striking new take on genesis. philosophically potent, beautifully written, and full of intriguing characters you never feel like you fully understand. worth the read.
May 28, 2012
I hate to keep repeating the same comments, but the 'idea' of this story intrigued me, but ultimately turned out to be extremely strange, and unsatisfying.
I think my biggest problem with fiction/sci-fi books is that I was was weaned on "The Twilight Zone", "The Andromeda Strain", "Outer Limits", etc. The writers/storytellers, in the 1960's, were on burgeoning, unexplored territories, and put forth their thought-provoking ideas in such a way that I could not help but be drawn in. I would sit glued to the black and white television screen watching The Twilight Zone, and mesmerized beyond all expectations, for an hour, once a week. I would plan my week around this show.
Then, by accident, I read "The Andromeda Strain", and I found the genre, in book form, as close to my love of "The Zone", and recently, few even come close. Most books in this genre are regurgitated tripe.
Perhaps, my expectations are too high, today. This genre has been hashed, and rehashed so many times, and in so many 'versions' of the above, that nothing new is advanced, and therefore disappointing. I am going to have to look to other fiction for solice, but I doubt that I will find it.
However, I keep hoping and praying, that another Rod Serling will arrive on the fiction, fantasy, horror, sci-fi scene, and entertain us with that high level of stylish,and taut social commentary, in Serling form, without the same ole' wash, rinse, and repeat.
I've read all Stephen King's novels, Neil Gaiman, etc. King is good but he is no Serling, and Gaiman is just twisted, in my opinion. The bests of King is was the Gunslinger Series. I've read "The Hunger Games", etc., and did not find it to be any more creative than the rest of today's rehashed, and retrograde fiction.
That said, I am looking into other genre's of fiction, but after reading over 1,200 new books over the past year, I doubt I will find what I am looking for. I would appreciate some in put here. Perhaps in the area of historical fiction???
I think my biggest problem with fiction/sci-fi books is that I was was weaned on "The Twilight Zone", "The Andromeda Strain", "Outer Limits", etc. The writers/storytellers, in the 1960's, were on burgeoning, unexplored territories, and put forth their thought-provoking ideas in such a way that I could not help but be drawn in. I would sit glued to the black and white television screen watching The Twilight Zone, and mesmerized beyond all expectations, for an hour, once a week. I would plan my week around this show.
Then, by accident, I read "The Andromeda Strain", and I found the genre, in book form, as close to my love of "The Zone", and recently, few even come close. Most books in this genre are regurgitated tripe.
Perhaps, my expectations are too high, today. This genre has been hashed, and rehashed so many times, and in so many 'versions' of the above, that nothing new is advanced, and therefore disappointing. I am going to have to look to other fiction for solice, but I doubt that I will find it.
However, I keep hoping and praying, that another Rod Serling will arrive on the fiction, fantasy, horror, sci-fi scene, and entertain us with that high level of stylish,and taut social commentary, in Serling form, without the same ole' wash, rinse, and repeat.
I've read all Stephen King's novels, Neil Gaiman, etc. King is good but he is no Serling, and Gaiman is just twisted, in my opinion. The bests of King is was the Gunslinger Series. I've read "The Hunger Games", etc., and did not find it to be any more creative than the rest of today's rehashed, and retrograde fiction.
That said, I am looking into other genre's of fiction, but after reading over 1,200 new books over the past year, I doubt I will find what I am looking for. I would appreciate some in put here. Perhaps in the area of historical fiction???
October 7, 2010
I'm not sure what to say about this book. The description sounded interesting so I gave it a chance (the description gave it a kind of Da Vinci Code kind of feel). It just didn't do it for me though.
A scientist discovers proof of extraterrestrial life. A discovery in the Holy Land of an ancient text that contradicts the biblical book of Genesis. A group from all three major religions that will stop at nothing to keep those secret. ...and a man (Adam) and woman (Lucy) that end up naked in a desert oasis seemingly just to have a naked man and woman in the story to give it that Adam and Eve feel.
You almost had me at first there.
To be fair, this book is not my usual genre.
The plot had an almost dream-like randomness to it. Characters seem to do things with no motivation. Seriously? A woman crash lands her plane and all her clothes burn off. Convenient for the plot. She decides to stay in the oasis with a crazy man she's never met before that thinks he's the biblical Adam? And she's okay with this? There's a feral boy that feeds sheep hearts to unconscious people. Characters show up to advance the story and then disappear or die.
There's some action in the book towards the end when the bad guys finally show up for a short chase through some caves.
My favorite character was the old mule-riding father of Pierre.
If the book had ended with Lucy waking up from a nap and realizing she was late for her lunch date with her husband, I would have believed the book more. Otherwise, it just didn't work.
IJustFinished.com provided the book for me to review.
A scientist discovers proof of extraterrestrial life. A discovery in the Holy Land of an ancient text that contradicts the biblical book of Genesis. A group from all three major religions that will stop at nothing to keep those secret. ...and a man (Adam) and woman (Lucy) that end up naked in a desert oasis seemingly just to have a naked man and woman in the story to give it that Adam and Eve feel.
You almost had me at first there.
To be fair, this book is not my usual genre.
The plot had an almost dream-like randomness to it. Characters seem to do things with no motivation. Seriously? A woman crash lands her plane and all her clothes burn off. Convenient for the plot. She decides to stay in the oasis with a crazy man she's never met before that thinks he's the biblical Adam? And she's okay with this? There's a feral boy that feeds sheep hearts to unconscious people. Characters show up to advance the story and then disappear or die.
There's some action in the book towards the end when the bad guys finally show up for a short chase through some caves.
My favorite character was the old mule-riding father of Pierre.
If the book had ended with Lucy waking up from a nap and realizing she was late for her lunch date with her husband, I would have believed the book more. Otherwise, it just didn't work.
IJustFinished.com provided the book for me to review.
November 11, 2010
This might actually be the worst book I've ever read.
Against my will, I liked Ahab's Wife. I liked it a lot, actually. So I read Abundance, and that was just so-so, but then Adam & Eve came out and I thought I'd give Sena Jeter Naslund another chance.
What the hell!
It was truly insulting to my intelligence. It tried very hard to be allegorical, and the characters were absurd, and the plot sucked ASS. At some point it devolved into a Dan Brown-esque thriller of illiterate proportions. It called on religious stereotypes and, well, all kinds of stereotypes, really. The main character was supposed to be some kind of prodigy in the field of psychology but you didn't get that sense at all. Nothing about the book seemed realistic in any way. And then you finally get to read the stupid fucking codex that these assholes had risked their lives to preserve and it was just some trite nonsense about loving your fellow man or some shit. I hated this book. I just absolutely hated it. The dialog was so awful I actually read some out loud to my husband and even he (no snob like I am) was horrified. Fuck this book. Seriously. I hope it dies. I'm actually afraid to reread Ahab's Wife for fear that I was an idiot and it's actually almost as bad as this book.
Against my will, I liked Ahab's Wife. I liked it a lot, actually. So I read Abundance, and that was just so-so, but then Adam & Eve came out and I thought I'd give Sena Jeter Naslund another chance.
What the hell!
It was truly insulting to my intelligence. It tried very hard to be allegorical, and the characters were absurd, and the plot sucked ASS. At some point it devolved into a Dan Brown-esque thriller of illiterate proportions. It called on religious stereotypes and, well, all kinds of stereotypes, really. The main character was supposed to be some kind of prodigy in the field of psychology but you didn't get that sense at all. Nothing about the book seemed realistic in any way. And then you finally get to read the stupid fucking codex that these assholes had risked their lives to preserve and it was just some trite nonsense about loving your fellow man or some shit. I hated this book. I just absolutely hated it. The dialog was so awful I actually read some out loud to my husband and even he (no snob like I am) was horrified. Fuck this book. Seriously. I hope it dies. I'm actually afraid to reread Ahab's Wife for fear that I was an idiot and it's actually almost as bad as this book.
July 29, 2018
Fan of this author , maybe best known for Ahab's Wife, but has many other books.
This strange out of time and extremely politically and geographically current novel strands a PTSD damaged soldie, and plane crash survivor -- wife of a reknowned (suspiciously deceased) astrophysicist in a tiny oasis in the Middle east. Hard to say who the good guys and bad guys are and the ideal if feral interlude of being one man and one woman where time stands still. And the return or Fall of Eden back into today's world.
Absolutely fascinating read--imaginative intrigue and human relationships all mixed up with politics, nations, and religion. Loved it. NOT the linear history of Ahab's Wife- this book leans to metaphor and philosphy alongside suspense. Hope you enjoy it too.
This strange out of time and extremely politically and geographically current novel strands a PTSD damaged soldie, and plane crash survivor -- wife of a reknowned (suspiciously deceased) astrophysicist in a tiny oasis in the Middle east. Hard to say who the good guys and bad guys are and the ideal if feral interlude of being one man and one woman where time stands still. And the return or Fall of Eden back into today's world.
Absolutely fascinating read--imaginative intrigue and human relationships all mixed up with politics, nations, and religion. Loved it. NOT the linear history of Ahab's Wife- this book leans to metaphor and philosphy alongside suspense. Hope you enjoy it too.
December 31, 2025
** 3 1/2 - 4 stars** I am a big fan of Sena Jeter Naslund's writing. AHAB'S WIFE is one of my favorite novels. That book is filled with rich, profoundly moving passages. Other books like FOUR SPIRITS are just as moving. ADAM & EVE doesn't quite match up to Sena Jeter Naslund's other stories. It's a somewhat predictable, sometimes convoluted story that reminds me a bit of DaVinci's Code.
If you're looking for a quintessential Sena Jeter Naslund novel, this one is not it. For that distinction, read her masterpiece, AHAB'S WIFE.
If you're looking for a quintessential Sena Jeter Naslund novel, this one is not it. For that distinction, read her masterpiece, AHAB'S WIFE.
June 21, 2025
What if in the middle of Da Vinci Code there was a plane crash and they started doing biblical allegories in the desert. What if we tried to tackle all the issues of the Middle East but, like, in one chapter each. What if there was bonus content to the Bible. What if a man named Professor Plum (yes, really) was chasing you. What if a piano fell on your husband’s head.
April 3, 2020
DNF: after 30 minutes of listening I couldn't stand one more minute of Lucy's gushing; "He's so dreamy! I'm so smart! But not as smart as dreamy Thom with the curly hair!" So disappointing, i loved Ahab's Wife and Abundance by Naslund , was hoping for something equally well written.
November 28, 2018
I tried, I really did. But there are too many characters who don't interact, too many subplots of subplots, and too many preachy messages, both secular and religious. This book was not for me.
November 28, 2010
Lucy Bergmann's husband Thom, is a brilliant physicist who is searching for life on other planets in the near future. He is killed in the opening chapter of the book, and we're led to believe that religious nuts who didn't want his discoveries published might have been behind his death. A few years later, Lucy herself is being pursued by a group of religious nuts as she transports an ancient document that will cast a new light on the story of Genesis.
I do love Sena Jeter Naslund. I really do. I was thrilled when I won an ARC of her newest book through Shelf Awareness. I was so disappointed when I didn't understand it. I didn't understand it at all.
I hate to write this, because it feels like I'm getting a little personal, but the plot was a mess. I don't know if this was supposed to be a religious thriller/conspiracy book, a pointed statement on the role of religion in world politics, a coming-of-age story, a meditation on marriage and self-identity--I just don't know. There are at least two distinct plots involving Lucy, and I don't understand how they fit together at all. While the scenes set in Eden were gorgeous and lush, I don't really understand how they were necessary. Oh, I get that it's something about the nature of man, but still, it's a long, beautiful section with about zero payoff that I could see. In case you're wondering, questioning religion does not offend me, so that's not the problem.
The one thing I did love is Adam. I've written a long-ish blog post already about how much I love him. He's pretty much physically perfect, gorgeous, well-sculpted, loving, caring, but he's a little damaged emotionally and mentally. I don't know if there's a woman alive who could resist that combination!
The very end was horrible! It felt cheap, and Sena Jeter Naslund is a much better author than that.
I did like the alternate beginning of Genesis. I won't quote it here, because it comes at the end of the book, but I liked it. Religious conservatives might not.
I would give the writing 4 stars and the plot 2 stars, but I just can't bring myself to average it out to 3 stars. I really need to understand why an author thought I needed to read this book, and I just wasn't there. So two stars it is.
You might enjoy this more if you generally "get" magical realism. I can have trouble with it, so maybe that's where the problem lies.
I do love Sena Jeter Naslund. I really do. I was thrilled when I won an ARC of her newest book through Shelf Awareness. I was so disappointed when I didn't understand it. I didn't understand it at all.
I hate to write this, because it feels like I'm getting a little personal, but the plot was a mess. I don't know if this was supposed to be a religious thriller/conspiracy book, a pointed statement on the role of religion in world politics, a coming-of-age story, a meditation on marriage and self-identity--I just don't know. There are at least two distinct plots involving Lucy, and I don't understand how they fit together at all. While the scenes set in Eden were gorgeous and lush, I don't really understand how they were necessary. Oh, I get that it's something about the nature of man, but still, it's a long, beautiful section with about zero payoff that I could see. In case you're wondering, questioning religion does not offend me, so that's not the problem.
The one thing I did love is Adam. I've written a long-ish blog post already about how much I love him. He's pretty much physically perfect, gorgeous, well-sculpted, loving, caring, but he's a little damaged emotionally and mentally. I don't know if there's a woman alive who could resist that combination!
The very end was horrible! It felt cheap, and Sena Jeter Naslund is a much better author than that.
I did like the alternate beginning of Genesis. I won't quote it here, because it comes at the end of the book, but I liked it. Religious conservatives might not.
I would give the writing 4 stars and the plot 2 stars, but I just can't bring myself to average it out to 3 stars. I really need to understand why an author thought I needed to read this book, and I just wasn't there. So two stars it is.
You might enjoy this more if you generally "get" magical realism. I can have trouble with it, so maybe that's where the problem lies.
October 15, 2010
One of the oldest stories ever told, that of Adam and Eve, gets a unique remake of sorts in Sena Jeter Naslund's Adam & Eve.
Lucy is in Amsterdam for a scientific conference with her husband Thom, an astrophysicist of renown, who tells Lucy that he has proof of extraterrestrial life. He gives Lucy a memory stick that contains all of his evidence.
Thom is killed by a falling piano, and Lucy is devastated. Still grieving her loss three years later, Lucy is invited to welcome scientists to a conference in Cairo. It is too much for her, and she breaks down on stage.
She meets a young woman who takes Lucy to her father, a scientist Lucy met at the conference. They convince Lucy to smuggle something out of Egypt for them- an alternate version of the book of Genesis that they have found buried.
There are fundamentalist Christians, Muslim extremists and literalist Jews who have banded together to stop anyone from finding out about this discovery, even willing to kill to prevent the world from reading this other Genesis.
Lucy agrees to fly a plane to France with the scripture, but her plane crashes and she is discovered by Adam, a young soldier who was kidnapped and assaulted by soldiers. Adam believes that Lucy is his Eve and that they are living in the Garden of Eden.
This is a big book, full of so many themes it can make your head spin. Lucy and Adam's life in Eden parallels the Biblical story, particularly when another soldier lands in their garden. His presence dramatically changes the dynamic of the Garden. Is he the embodiment of the devilish snake from Genesis?
The violence that is an everyday part of life in the Middle East is explored as a root cause of the rise of dangerous religious fundamentalism. Throw in the possibility of life on other planets and the fear of that knowledge endangering religious doctrine. Add in the discovery of very early human drawings in caves in France and you've got a lot to think about.
Naslund has packed a lot of ideas into 350 pages, and her characters are well-drawn and interesting. Lucy and Adam's life in the garden is fascinating, and thriller fans will be rewarded with an action-packed sequence that resolves the story. Adam & Eve is the thinking person's answer to The DaVinci Code.
Lucy is in Amsterdam for a scientific conference with her husband Thom, an astrophysicist of renown, who tells Lucy that he has proof of extraterrestrial life. He gives Lucy a memory stick that contains all of his evidence.
Thom is killed by a falling piano, and Lucy is devastated. Still grieving her loss three years later, Lucy is invited to welcome scientists to a conference in Cairo. It is too much for her, and she breaks down on stage.
She meets a young woman who takes Lucy to her father, a scientist Lucy met at the conference. They convince Lucy to smuggle something out of Egypt for them- an alternate version of the book of Genesis that they have found buried.
There are fundamentalist Christians, Muslim extremists and literalist Jews who have banded together to stop anyone from finding out about this discovery, even willing to kill to prevent the world from reading this other Genesis.
Lucy agrees to fly a plane to France with the scripture, but her plane crashes and she is discovered by Adam, a young soldier who was kidnapped and assaulted by soldiers. Adam believes that Lucy is his Eve and that they are living in the Garden of Eden.
This is a big book, full of so many themes it can make your head spin. Lucy and Adam's life in Eden parallels the Biblical story, particularly when another soldier lands in their garden. His presence dramatically changes the dynamic of the Garden. Is he the embodiment of the devilish snake from Genesis?
The violence that is an everyday part of life in the Middle East is explored as a root cause of the rise of dangerous religious fundamentalism. Throw in the possibility of life on other planets and the fear of that knowledge endangering religious doctrine. Add in the discovery of very early human drawings in caves in France and you've got a lot to think about.
Naslund has packed a lot of ideas into 350 pages, and her characters are well-drawn and interesting. Lucy and Adam's life in the garden is fascinating, and thriller fans will be rewarded with an action-packed sequence that resolves the story. Adam & Eve is the thinking person's answer to The DaVinci Code.
September 23, 2010
In 2017, Lucy Bergmann is walking to meet her husband for lunch when right before her, a piano that was being hoisted up a window falls and kills him. She is traumatized and floats around in grief for about three years. In 2020 she is invited to speak at an event honoring her husband and while on this trip she meets a scientist who was also acquainted with her husband. He asks her to transport a scroll that is of great importance to the world because its revelations will forever alter the three major monotheistic religions forever. For some mysterious reason, Lucy agrees and pilots a plane from Egypt to Paris. Unfortunately, her plane goes down somewhere in the Mesopotamian forest and here she meets a naked man (drop dead gorgeous of course) who is also marooned in the same forest. This gorgeous naked man is named Adam and they set up their version of the garden of Eden. Yep...you read that right, its Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. And just as they are getting comfortable in their home, they find themselves running from killers who want to destroy the scroll that Lucy had set out to deliver.
I am not even sure what happened here. I was really excited to read this book but even a day later, I am still in disbelief as to how much this book fell through. The characters are caricatures of real people running around spouting theological tenets that feel more like the author staging her ideas. In addition to all of this, the book is not sure what it is. Is it an anti religious tract, thriller, romance, or all of these and more? Personally I could not tell you because even after 335 pages, I was left with little in the way of insight. I guess it was all some great metaphor that I did not get.
*Review Copy provided by Harper Collins publishers.
I am not even sure what happened here. I was really excited to read this book but even a day later, I am still in disbelief as to how much this book fell through. The characters are caricatures of real people running around spouting theological tenets that feel more like the author staging her ideas. In addition to all of this, the book is not sure what it is. Is it an anti religious tract, thriller, romance, or all of these and more? Personally I could not tell you because even after 335 pages, I was left with little in the way of insight. I guess it was all some great metaphor that I did not get.
*Review Copy provided by Harper Collins publishers.
November 9, 2014
This novel begins with a piano falling on a man and killing him. The piano is being hoisted into the window of a third-storey apartment, being too large to fit in an elevator or negotiate the stairwells.
In hindsight this should have tipped me off. Why would someone be standing under a piano? Wouldn’t the sidewalk be cordoned off? I mean most people won’t walk under a ladder, but this character stood under a piano being hoisted up three storeys?
I kept on reading because the plot sounded fascinating – an astrophysicist has evidence of extraterrestrial life, an anthropologist has discovered ancient writings that cast in doubt the Book of Genesis. Evidence of both these revelations comes into the possession of one woman who is pursued by fundamentalist of three faiths who don’t want this information revealed to the public.
It sounds like an action thriller along the lines of the Da Vinci Code. It’s not.
Long descriptive passages bog down the narrative, conversations lead to nothing, and when the plot (finally) advances it’s with contrived scenes that push the suspension of belief, well, beyond belief.
Add to that an ending that leaves so many situations unresolved I had to look back to see if I’d missed a chapter and what you’ve got is a “literary fiction” at its worst.
August 17, 2014
Lost in the Garden of Eden
Amidst a cluttered landscape of radical creationists & paranoid rabbis living in the shadows of martyred relatives, Naslund's characters lamely weave a twisted tale of Adam searching for Eve in Lewis Carrol's Wonderland. Yes, this book is as warped as this opening paragraph. Naslund attempts to blend Dan Brown mystical elements with new age treatments of Genesis interspersed with dollops of bad cops & robbers. Adam didn't know if he was Adam or Harry searching for Sally. And then there's Lucy who Adam sometimes thinks is Eve, though he knows she's really Lucy in spite of the fact that Lucy enjoys being Eve. Confused? So was the plotting. It's very hard to believe this is the same acclaimed author who wrote Ahab's Wife. Clearly, something was amiss in the garden.
Amidst a cluttered landscape of radical creationists & paranoid rabbis living in the shadows of martyred relatives, Naslund's characters lamely weave a twisted tale of Adam searching for Eve in Lewis Carrol's Wonderland. Yes, this book is as warped as this opening paragraph. Naslund attempts to blend Dan Brown mystical elements with new age treatments of Genesis interspersed with dollops of bad cops & robbers. Adam didn't know if he was Adam or Harry searching for Sally. And then there's Lucy who Adam sometimes thinks is Eve, though he knows she's really Lucy in spite of the fact that Lucy enjoys being Eve. Confused? So was the plotting. It's very hard to believe this is the same acclaimed author who wrote Ahab's Wife. Clearly, something was amiss in the garden.
November 29, 2010
Once this story got started, I sunk into it like a good fairy tale. I liked the idea of the Eden-like area for Adam and Lucy to recover in, healing both physical and emotional wounds. The foreshadowing of the end of the perceived magic in their Eden coincides, of course, with the intrusion of the outside world; you can see it coming, but Ms. Naslund carries you through it nicely.
I was anticipating the big reveal at the end of the novel but was disappointed and left feeling kind of flat. Until that point I would have given this book a solid four stars but with the, "that's it?" feeling I got, I had to drop it to a three. Adam & Eve is a good book, but could use a bit more "oomph" at the end.
I was anticipating the big reveal at the end of the novel but was disappointed and left feeling kind of flat. Until that point I would have given this book a solid four stars but with the, "that's it?" feeling I got, I had to drop it to a three. Adam & Eve is a good book, but could use a bit more "oomph" at the end.
January 16, 2016
This was a long read, even though it was fairly short in pages, I felt I had a tough time making it through.
I can say that I appreciate the words the author used to write with. I may not have enjoyed what the words told, but I did enjoy how it was put together. Sena writes very eloquently, enough so that I can't help but wonder if she talks that way too.
I couldn't connect with the story at all though. The characters well great, but I really didn't have any similarities to them and their story. I didn't even like that they eventually hooked up, I wouldn't have bothered with that, there was enough going on in the story already. I'm sure somehow it was all supposed to play in a part together, but it just didn't get there for me.
I can say that I appreciate the words the author used to write with. I may not have enjoyed what the words told, but I did enjoy how it was put together. Sena writes very eloquently, enough so that I can't help but wonder if she talks that way too.
I couldn't connect with the story at all though. The characters well great, but I really didn't have any similarities to them and their story. I didn't even like that they eventually hooked up, I wouldn't have bothered with that, there was enough going on in the story already. I'm sure somehow it was all supposed to play in a part together, but it just didn't get there for me.
September 7, 2010
I had high hopes for this book, because I've enjoyed Naslund's previous books, especially Ahab's Wife and Abundance. Unfortunately, this book was a grave disappointment. It seems like Naslund was trying to do something a little different with Adam & Eve. The result is dialogue filled with non-sequiturs, plot points that are left dangling, and characters who say and do things with no apparent motivation or that are directly at odds with what they have said and done previously (with no accounting for the switch). Although Naslund is to be praised for trying something new, I hope that in her next book she will return to the style that has previously served her (and her readers) so well.
August 3, 2011
I think this is a very ambitious book. It caused me to think deeply about many things, including cave paintings and religious dogma, about which I might not otherwise have thought deeply. As a whole, however, it did not cohere. As I finished it, I couldn't help but think of Dorothy Parker's line about throwing the novel with great force, for that is exactly what I had the urge to do. So while there were many wonderful things about this novel, I was ultimately disappointed. Which made me sad, since I love so many of Sena's other books (really all of them). But I suppose it provoked a strong reaction, which means something.
August 1, 2011
I wish I had good things to say about this story since I really enjoyed Ahab's Wife but this was not what I considered to be a good book. It was confusing, but not in a way that would make the reader really ponder what was being said or meant. The boy in the garden was strange, Adam was strange. The other pilot was strange (I don't even remember his name). The reader didn't feel the characters or what they were experiencing. There was no anticipaiting what would happen next. Quite frankly the only thing I was anticipating was the end of the book which I did finish but only because I kept thinking it had to get better.
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