Child of God: A Novel [Paperback]

Lolita Files (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 20, 2002

In this searing novel, bestselling author Lolita Files tells the tale of a Southern family torn apart by the secrets it struggles to keep.

Everybody knows everybody else's business in Downtown, Tennessee. Neighbors while away afternoons at the local bar, swapping rumors about voodoo, incest, and illegitimate children. Usually they're gossiping about the Botens.

In this epic saga, Lolita Files unveils the hidden lives of three generations of the Boten clan, a family as cursed by fate as they are blessed with hope. There's Grandma Amalie, who's willing to sacrifice everything for her son; there's Grace, who manages to conceal the identity of her child's father for more than twenty years; there's Aunt Sukie, whose strange power over her husband, Walter, is matched only by the strength of her dark magic; and, finally, there's Lay, whose secret betrayals will set the Boten clan in motion, sending its members on a quest for self-discovery that will lead them from one end of the world to the other.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From the author of Scenes from a Sistah comes this saga of a family cast about by the winds of fate and torn apart by love and fear. Entwining the stories of two generations of the Boten clan of Downtown, Tenn., Files has created a lurid play of murder, incest, rape and deceit worthy of the Shakespearean names of her characters. She references Hamlet, but this spectacle might find a better comparison in Titus Andronicus. Ophelia Boten is the product of an incestuous union between her mother, Grace, and her latently homosexual uncle, Walter. Unaware of her own origins or the tragedies of her family's past, Ophelia is soon pregnant with a love child of her own, courtesy of her vicious older brother, Lay (short for Laertes). Lay is sent off to Detroit, where he becomes a heroin dealer, and their infant son Hamlet perishes in a fire that may or may not have been started deliberately by Sukie, Walter's voodoo witch of a wife. Unsurprisingly, the family unravels even further, and the narrative eventually degenerates into more murders, fires, addictions, rapes and just about everything else under the sun. Files's writing is serviceable, but fails to lift this soap opera up to a truly moving level, leaving the flat characters to carry out the Herculean task of transforming the overblown drama into something real and poignant. Throughout it all, Files harps on the power of love, both driving the characters further into self-destruction and bringing some eventual redemption but the plot is too unwieldy and the brushstrokes too broad for this tragedy to escape predictability and garishness. Agent, Warren Frazier of John Hawkins Assoc.; 7-city author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Files' fourth novel covers the taboo subjects of incest, homosexuality, and voodoo. The southern family featured here has survived the secrets and misfortune of three generations, from the post-World War II era to the Vietnam War. The saga begins with the grandparents, Amalie and Benny, who inaugurated the family history of violence and confusion. Their perverse personal demons destroyed the family and caused the children, Grace and Walter, to share a sibling bond that was both blasphemous and wholesome. When the pregnant Grace married Big Daddy, it was hoped that the curse would be broken. Yet their sons, Lay and Polo, also became victims of the family misfortune. Walter finally marries a woman, from Louisiana, who adds another twisted secret to the already confused family history. Grace has a daughter, Ophelia, and the death of Ophelia's child in a mysterious fire prompts Grace to offer her daughter an opportunity that she herself was never able to accept; it is Ophelia's determination to confront the family curse that changes the future of the Boten legacy. Lillian Lewis
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (August 20, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743225910
• ISBN-13: 978-0743225915
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (161 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #396,899 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Some Serious Drama!, August 6, 2001

By 

Yasmin Coleman (PENNSYLVANIA, USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Child of God: A Novel (Hardcover)

Lolita Files is back with an edgy and daring new novel titled Child of Goda saga of a Southern family tormented by a legacy of shameful secrets. Files latest heroine is Ophelia Boten, a young woman who must confront her familys past before she can extinguish the curse that threatens her future.

Set mostly against the backdrop of a small, country town named Downtown, TN, Child of God shows the sordid secrets binding one family over four decades. The story opens with the death of Ophelias son, baby Hamlet, who is the lone casualty of a mysterious fire. However, the reader quickly discovers that this is the first of many tragedies throughout the book. Similar tragedies that keep repeating over and over throughout the generations. As Files carefully weaves us forward and backward in time with this family, we discover a multitude of secrets and sinsincest, voodoo, rape, homosexuality, drug addiction, murder and suicides. Before Ophelia can find true love and share it, she must unravel the intricate relationships, mystical ties and forbidden passions that have tormented her family over the years.

Child of God is a fast-paced and suspense-packed read and shows Files ability to tackle different storylines and tell a good story. However, readers looking for more of the sistafriend relationship of Reesy and Misty will be disappointed with Child of God because this is truly a different read and probably more in line with Blind Ambitionalbeit a darker story than any of her stories to-date. Child of God is a storyline filled with lots of violence, brutality, tragedy and anguish. The storyline has a Jerry Springish feel and mentality with far-fetch and over-the-top situations that might make some folks want to throw the book against the wall and leave it there. Those who enjoy lots of drama with a soap-operaish type style will love this book. Aside from some of the loose ends such as Lays behavior and Lay and Sukies relationship which I never quite understood, I enjoyed the colorful characters, vivid situations, poignant dialogue and riveting storyline. I look forward to future books from Ms. Files.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Her best work yet, August 23, 2001

By 

"misslove" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Child of God: A Novel (Hardcover)

The first line of the novel introduces the audacity of this spirited story of a rural family plagued with menacing deep family secrets and arduous dilemmas that leave an ominous cloud hanging over them. The Boltens teeter between aerious innocence and ignorant wickedness. Files unfolds their history of murder, incest, and deceit, expertly moving from past to present. Evil and sin run rampant through the pages interspersed through each character and successfully shaping the story.

Child of God is Files' best work yet. The blatant parallels of the novel to Shakespeare's Hamlet are ingenious. Files assembled a fleet of characters that are colorful, spirited, and unique. The characters are developed and delivered in their own entity where they project themselves into the unfolding of this lurid story.

This tragic story is full of capricious plots that will leave your mouth agape in disbelief, but will continuously grab your interest. This novel is very different from Files' previous novels; however, it shows acute intelligence and versatility in her writing. You will enjoy this story.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Child of God, May 7, 2002

By 

K. Kimbrough "kkimbr7" (Bakersfield, Ca United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Child of God: A Novel (Hardcover)

...
Lolita Files takes us down a twisted road of confusion when the characters in her book Child of God journey down dead end streets and decide to set up shop.

Amalie, Grace, Walter, Ophelia, Suki, Polo, Lay, Big Daddy, and the others involved with them are wrapped in a quilt of... perversions, insanity, and supernatural nightmares. I found it amazing that Ms. Files managed to sew it all together, yet she did. Each square of the quilt, separate in its on right, yet connected to the whole. I felt inundated with constant symbols of burning in hell, and I knew that I had just been introduced to the residents of the fiery pit. One must asked themselves was their anyone in the novel that was left untouched by an eminent evil? Even the innocent were doomed to embrace a spiritually dysfunctional life and each character seemed to be in his/her own level of purgatory. Going through the pangs of living with these characters left this reader frustrated and exhausted.

I found this story to be depressing yet compelling. And though I stayed up into the wee hours of the morning to finish, I found myself never truly being involved with the characters only a mere spectator in their lives. I wanted to know what happened but I didn't particularly care how it was all resolved. I felt that Ms Files expected some leaps to made about some characters and yet in contrast there were other relationships that moved me.

Despite what may seem like contradictions in this story I would give it 3 stars and would recommend to those who asked. It was engaging and entertaining. (It had to be because I was up until 1 am). Most of the enjoyment for me in this novel came from the fact that it was just an interesting story with an interesting theme, and interesting characters.

Having read all of the Lolita Files novels I can say that Child of God was a complete departure from her previous work. Although I am more of a fan of her first works... I do applaud her for venturing out and doing something different.

Reviewed by Kotanya
-APOO Bookclub-