Colony Girl [Hardcover]

Thomas Rayfiel (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1999

A latter-day Eve foments sexual revolution in the religious heartland.

Outside of Arhat, Iowa, population 8,000, there are cornfields and there's the Colony, a small Christian community whose inhabitants are willing themselves back to biblical times. Precocious, fifteen-year-old Eve is a Colony girl, but she is too smart and impatient to stay put. Along with her friends, she is just reaching that age where the future looms and the temptations of Town beckon. She gets a job as a highway crew flagman (she likes the orange vest), and she falls in love with both Joey, the local teen Adonis, and his portly, tortured, middle-aged dad, Herbert. Meanwhile, the Colony is in an uproar. Gordon, its charismatic and creepy founder, has been acting strange lately . . . strange even for a cult leader. He is holed up in his house watching cable twenty-four hours a day, ignoring his flock. And the marriage he arranges for Eve's best friend may just be the last straw for the Colony elders. As Colony Girl races to an unexpected climax, bold Eve finds herself trying to save the Colony even as she struggles to escape its grasp. Sharp, witty, and entirely fresh, this coming-of-age story mixes religion and sex with surprising results.

Thomas Rayfiel is the author of Split Levels, which "never stops entertaining or disturbing" (San Francisco Chronicle). He lives in Brooklyn with his family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Though she attends a public high school, shows up at parties and lands a highway road-crew summer job, everyone knows 15-year-old Eve is a Colony girlApart of a Christian religious settlement surrounded by cornfields outside Arhat, Iowa. We meet her drunk and throwing up at a partyAand falling in love with the host's father, who is trying to help her. In such circumstances, Eve usually reminds people she can't have a ride homeA"no cars in the Bible." Life at the Colony follows strict rules, as set by autocratic, charismatic religious leader Gordon ("no last names in the Bible"), but recently Gordon has been in a bit of a slump. He drinks and watches old reruns, and is inspired only when his satellite dish picks up what he's sure is an original I Love Lucy signal, bouncing around in space. Gordon cuts Eve a lot of slack because her mother once was his lover, and Eve has become his spunky young soul mate. Eve takes advantage of her relative freedom, trying very hard to lose her virginity to her hunky boyfriend, Joey, or his father, whichever one she can seduce first. But when Gordon announces that he plans to take one of Eve's teenage friends as his bride, Eve sets off on a campaign to ruin him, aided by information she garners from a businessman who owns the local strip joint. Rayfiel (Split Levels) doesn't give readers a full dose of either satire or coming-of-age story, though there are elements of both here, subtly fused in a smart, funny, oddball story that has much truth and wit, and a deliciously lusty, smart teenage narrator. Though Eve's final escape seems a little abrupt, by the time she leaves, readers will be convinced that the ex-Colony girl has all it takes to survive in the real world. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Neither as entertaining nor as provocative as Rayfiel's first novel, Split-Levels, this work tells the story of a small Christian community in Iowa and of Eve, who wants to escape it. Only 15, Eve spends her time trying not to be a good girl. She works on a road crew, drinks with her buddies, and yearns for sex with both handsome Joey and his fatherAanything to grow up faster. Meanwhile, the community's founder and cultish leader, Gordon, has begun to act strangely. Utterly uncharismatic and seemingly powerless, he prefers watching reruns and cable to guiding his flock. Despite all of this, there is little tension in this limp novel. The characters are poorly rendered (it is never clear why Eve is unhappy and rebellious or what she hopes to prove) and the town's history confusing. Why did the colonists come here? Why do they stay? A marginal purchase.AYvette Weller Olson, City Univ. Lib., Renton, WA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 279 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux (T); 1st edition (September 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374126445
• ISBN-13: 978-0374126445
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,788,513 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving page-turner, October 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Colony Girl (Hardcover)

I loved this book. I have worked with adolescents in a variety of settings for 30 years and Mr. Rayfiel captures the struggle of leaving home with terrific insight. Though his young protagonist is from a nontraditional home he captures the universal conflict of separation from family in a way anyone can recognize. He demonstrates in a powerful way that the shape of "family" outside the norm maintains its significant impact and attachment issues. I have seen this over and over in my work with kids from different "family" constellations. Mr. Rayfiel's writing is poignant and heartfelt and the book is beautifully crafted. The story demonstrates the complex issues of growing up that include spirituality, sexual awakening, parental weakness, adult hypocrisy, peer relationships, sexism and narrowmindedness. Eve is definitely the Holden Caufield of the new millenium. This book will be a classic coming-of-age work.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A surprising tour de force, October 10, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Colony Girl (Hardcover)

I loved every page. One of the most surprising aspects of this book is how a man can write so insigthtfully and sensitively about the feelings of a young girl. It is truly a coming-of-age story with meaning for men and women of this era in America. The protagonist's reflections on her relationships both inside and outside of her "Colony" have lovely pearls of wisdom for all of us. All of my friends will find this under the Xmas tree this year.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Entertaining story, interesting theology, December 2, 2000

By 

areaderinslc "areaderinslc" (Salt Lake City, Utah USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Colony Girl (Hardcover)

I agree with all of the other positive reviews that this is an entertaining and engrossing story of a girl's summer spent reaching out to explore life outside her religious "Colony." She takes an offbeat job, forms probably unsanctioned relationships in unusual combinations, and stretches and probes her existing relationships with Colony hierarchy, family, and girl friends.

I disagree with other reviewers, though. I could tell immediately the author was male, even though the main character and voice are female. There is definitely a haze covering the story of a man imagining what a girl in this situation would be thinking, and parts of the story seemd less than authentic, because of this.

However, I thought the head Colony honcho, Gordon, was great. He acts out his own skewed but somehow charming theology and thus leads by example. Deciphering his relationship with Eve is one of the skillfully handled challenges this book offers.

All in all, there's plenty of good stuff in this book to make you wish it went on longer.