Reviews for Adam & Eve
Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
The story of the story of Genesis, and a love story reminiscent of Joan Crawford's worst movies are, uh, juxtaposed, in this very earnest sixth novel from the industrious Kentucky author (Abundance, 2006, etc.).Set in the near future, it begins with the narration of Lucy Bergmann, widowed when her husband Thom, a renowned astrophysicist who had discovered evidence of extraterrestrial life, is brought rudely back to earth, so to speak, when a piano falls from the sky onto him. Inspired to continue Thom's work, Lucy educates herself as needed, accepts numerous invitations to scholarly conventions and whatnot, and happens to be airborne en route to Egypt when engine trouble and the Hand of Fate steer her toward the nubile naked form of wounded American soldier (yes, dear readers, we're still Over There) Adam Black, having awokenlike his biblical namesakein the Mesopotamian desert, to a new world waiting to be claimed by this transplanted Iowa farm boy. Eventually this Adam, whose ingenuous ingenuity recalls the gnomic nonwisdom of Chauncey Gardiner in Jerzy Kosinski's Being There, and his new Eve leave their garden and end up in France, in flight from Thom's old colleague and enemy Gabriel Plum ("a serpent") and into the orbit of anthropologist and cave-painting aficionado Pierre Saad, whose multicultural pedigree and ethos heighten his interest in The Object (which Hitchcock would have called the MacGuffin) that proves the world's four major religions have a common origin. Traditionalists, needless to say, disagree: hence, this overheated novel's ineffably risible climax. The bookgroans with faux-biblical encomia to Adam's pristine naturalness (e.g., "And Adam touched himself, till he was satisfied" [the reader likewise groans, but not with pleasure]). Even stagier are its abundant rhetorical questions, such as Pierre's "Are we so different from people who lived eons ago?"Hmmm...wonder what the Texas State School Board will think of this one?]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
In 2017, Lucy, the much younger wife of famous astrophysicist Thom Bergmann, watches in horror as a grand piano being lowered from a window in Amsterdam slips and kills him. Devastated, Lucy protects the memory stick he entrusted to her, which contains proof of extraterrestrial life. Fast-forward three years to Mesopotamia (Iraq), where a wounded American soldier has barely survived his injuries and is immersed in religious delusions. Adam saves Lucy after the crash of the small plane she was piloting while smuggling an ancient codex, given to her by Pierre, an Arab now living in France. Adam tends to Lucy's burns, and they both restore body and soul in their Eden. Pursued by evil men who fear the knowledge contained in both the memory stick and the codex, Adam and his Eve flee their assailants and seek refuge in France with Pierre and his beautiful daughter, where all four are now in the crosshairs of danger. Verdict To describe the elements of this ambitious novel is to sound unhinged, but Naslund (Ahab's Wife; or, The Star-Gazer) pulls it off. This thriller is rich in brilliant discourses on religion, fanaticism, the meaning of ancient cave art, the speculative future, and love. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/10.]-Beth E. Anderson, Ann Arbor Dist. Lib., MI (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Naslund (Ahab's Wife) delivers a cheesy blend of futuristic thriller, pseudoreligious speculation, and idyllic romance. In 2017, Lucy Bergmann's astrophysicist husband is murdered just before he is to reveal the existence of extraterrestrial life. Now, as the keeper of a copy of his data, Lucy's being stalked by the leaders of a sect called Perpetuity, who intend to destroy any challenge to their fundamentalist beliefs. And when Lucy agrees to transport an ancient scroll that offers an alternate version of the Book of Genesis from Cairo to the Dordogne, she becomes a double target. Lucy pilots a plane (this convenient ability is indicative of the preposterous plot) and crash-lands in Mesopotamia, where she meets a gorgeous, naked man named Adam (an American GI gone a touch nutty) who nurses her back to health in a facsimile of the Garden of Eden. Their chaste but busy domesticity is eventually threatened by the evil Perpetuity crew, and they face even more danger after an escape to France. It's embarrassingly bad in every way, from the dopey conceit of a 21st-century Eden to the paper-thin characters who spout ersatz philosophy and spiritual theorizing while enjoying the cloying cliches of romance fiction. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.
This outlandish stew of biblical analogy, political thriller, futuristic speculation, and old-fashioned adventure story by the best-selling author of Ahab's Wife (1999) teases and frustrates the reader. Lucy Bergmann is, in her own words, an ordinary wife of a revered man. Her husband, highly regarded in the international scientific community, has discovered evidence of extraterrestrial life. Accompanied by Lucy, he takes his findings to a conference in Cairo (the time is a decade from now) and unexpectedly dies there, leaving his material in Lucy's care. Adding to the distress of sudden widowhood and guardianship of revolutionary data, she is asked to smuggle to Europe an ancient codex offering a new version of the Book of Genesis. The plane she pilots yes, she just happens to be a pilot! crashes, affording her an encounter with the gorgeous Adam, an injured, delusional American soldier. They build a relationship in what they regard as Eden, but they must eventually forsake this lush garden to rejoin society; the whys and hows of their expulsion are an even match with the amazing events that have come before. For the first half of the novel, there may be reluctance to suspend disbelief in the incredible events that unfold. Eventually, however, many will find the metaphorical loftiness engaging.--Hooper, Brad Copyright 2010 Booklist
