Lamb Bright Saviors (Flyover Fiction) [Paperback]

Robert Vivian (Author)

Book Description

Series: Flyover Fiction | Publication Date: March 1, 2010

“Robert Vivian’s prose is lyrical and harrowing—harrowing in the Biblical sense,” Sven Birkerts said of The Mover of Bones, the first book in Vivian’s Tall Grass Trilogy. That same lyrical power carries this new volume to a place of hard-won hope and redemption at once both spiritual and earthly.

 

Lamb Bright Saviors begins as an apocalyptically inclined itinerant preacher staggers across the Nebraska prairie. With his young assistant, Mady, in tow hauling a wagon stacked with bibles, it’s not long before the preacher finds he’s come to the final fulfillment of his self-proclaimed life’s work: to die in front of a group of strangers. Odd as his own end-of-days might be, the lives and struggles of the strangers attending this deathbed scene are even odder. As the dying preacher unleashes a barrage of hallucinatory ramblings and rantings in the hope of imparting wisdom, each ragtag member of this unlikely congregation must reckon with his or her own dark past. And, through it all, the irrepressible Mady lends the preacher’s strange performance a surprising and unforgettable dignity and humor.

(20100104)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The Lamb Bright Saviors of Vivian's stark latest (after The Mover of Bones) are four damaged man-boys chosen by a terminally ill itinerant preacher named Mr. Gene to witness his death at the house of a blind woman in a small Nebraska town they've dubbed Point Blank, because there's nowhere to hide and nothing to protect you. Each recounts his own sordid story as they listen to Mr. Gene's deathbed rant. Oly lives in the dugout of an abandoned baseball field and dreams of a job as a junior high sports coach. Yarborough, an ex-con, gets bloody revenge on a former fellow inmate before forgiving him. Gus covers his body with tattoos, wanting to have the imprint of my rage stamped across my skin. Munoz, back from the war in Iraq, has brought with him the head of a friend killed in combat. Vivian is a latter-day Faulkner set loose with no editorial restraints, so there is no need to suspend your disbelief for this story. You can only go along for the brilliantly written ride, full of sound and fury that signifies little but moves us intensely. (Mar.)
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Review

"Vivian is a latter-day Faulkner set loose with no editorial restraints, so there is no need to suspend your disbelief for this story. You can only go along for the brilliantly written ride, full of sound and fury that signifies little but moves us intensely."—Publishers Weekly

(Publishers Weekly 20100201)

"This spare and powerful work by the author of The Mover of Bones will find a select audience with literary fiction fans."—Ann H. Fisher, Library Journal

(Ann H. Fisher Library Journal 20100406)

"Lamb Bright Saviors delivers a powerful story within its mere 185 pages. Calling upon the vast prairies of the physical landscape and the crowded alleys of the human mind, Robert Vivian guides us through the possibilities of failure and redemption in a profound yet immensely readable novel."—Christy Corp-Minamiji, Blogcritics

(Christy Corp-Minamiji Blogcritics 20100603)

"Robert Vivian''s novel has more than enough plot to satisfy. . . . The real star here is Vivian''s use of language, poetic and rich, which makes an apocalyptic story that takes place in a small room become almost biblical in proportion."—Kel Munger, newsreview.com

(Kel Munger newsreview.com 20100501)

"This profound character study is a terrific look into the souls of six people seeking redemption. . . . The novella contains a stark Nebraska atmosphere that enhances the story line."—Harriet Klausner, Midwest Book Review

(Harriet Klausner Midwest Book Review 20110108)

"Robert Vivian writes with an eye for detail and an ear for music, composing stories from sentences as shapely as Baroque scrollwork and fun as a carnival ride."—Kelly Lenox, powells.com

(Kelly Lenox powells.com )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 198 pages
• Publisher: Bison Books (March 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0803213808
• ISBN-13: 978-0803213807
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,928,923 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Vivian is the author of Cold Snap As Yearning and The Tall Grass Trilogy (The Mover Of Bones, Lamb Bright Saviors, and Another Burning Kingdom). He's also written a new collection of essays, The Least Cricket Of Evening, which will be out in 2011 in addition to another novel entitled Water And Abandon. All of these books are with the University of Nebraska Press. He teaches at Alma College and in the low-residency MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He's married to the artist and costume designer Tina Vivian. They live much of the year in the country in Northern Michigan.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars profound character study, March 25, 2010

By 

Harriet Klausner - See all my reviews
(#1 Hall OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lamb Bright Saviors (Flyover Fiction) (Paperback)

Mr. Gene and his assistant young Mady travel across Nebraska preaching the Lord's word and distributing bibles. However, Mr. Gene takes ill and knows he is dying. He stops at the home of an elderly blind woman while word spreads of the preacher's imminent demise which leads to many folks arriving.

As he babbles about God, four people are invited to hear his final confession. Each is euphoric with the chance because they seek redemption. Living inside a baseball dugout, Oly prays that one day he will coach school sports. Former convict Yarborough sought revenge against someone who betrayed him, but forgave the person after he took a pound of flesh. Tattooed all over his body, Gus uses body art to display his ire at the world. Finally Iraqi war veteran Munoz carries the head of his brother in arms killed in theater.

This profound character study is a terrific look into the souls of six people seeking redemption; ironically that includes the rambling preacher who believes if he delivers the four strangers to God he will have atoned for his sins. The novella contains a stark Nebraska atmosphere that enhances the story line for those readers who will appreciate an austere reflection on the foibles of atoning for one's life even in death.

Harriet Klausner

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Affecting and transporting, May 18, 2011

By 

Nina Murray (Midwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Lamb Bright Saviors (Flyover Fiction) (Paperback)

Robert Vivian believes in holy dread, the transporting awe of, as he puts it after Jorge Luis Borges, "the peculiar and never-ending mystery of our place here on earth." The mystery of a prophet who can only make his message heard on his deathbed, perhaps, or of a soldier whose sacrifice haunts his comrades far beyond his grave. Death and the promise of redemption, no less, are the subject of Lamb Bright Saviors, Vivian's second novel.
Outside of a small town in Western Nebraska, seven people come together in an isolated farm house: the dying preacher, his teenage assistant, the four local men who carried him in, and the owner of the house, a blind widow. As the unnamed itinerant prophet delivers his last sermon, his vision finds resonance with his unlikely witnesses and mysteriously unveils each onlooker's essence.
Vivian's writing aims to feed the hunger for release and meaning that one of his characters laments: "There's so much you can't share with another person, I'm surprised you can share anything at all."
More about this book and Robert Vivian in Nebraska Life