“A Children’s Bible” starts out as a dark and funny coming of age story with the adolescent narrator Evie. She sets the stage with a large summer home, a group of kids that run wild, and parents who are blissfully unaware. Evie and the other children have such a disdain for their parents, they become a looming shame for each of them.A game becomes created amongst them, to see who can conceal their parents until the end of summer. It lasts for weeks and weeks as the parents become more indulged in their vices, and are unaware of their kids.
As Evie and the children’s summer turns from a teenage dream to an anarchic apocalypse, when a hurricane hits their summer home. The kids are left to fend for themselves trying to survive the hurricane, as their parents distract themselves with their vices. The kids have no choice but to forge onward, doing what they should never have to do. They leave their parents at the summer house to escape the hurricane. As they leave,they see the hurricane has expanded from their home to the whole east coast, creating a whole new reality for them. The rest of the book explores how the kids move through the apocalypse and how the situation at hand is going to be fatal for most of the world.
The children are left with a feeling of hatred towards their parents for doing nothing to stop the situation at hand. They point out how careless they are, how they let the world fall.
Their parents chose to fade away, distracting themselves from the tragedy at hand. Their contributions from a former life are no longer relevant to the dystopia that had replaced it. Perfectly describing the generational climate crisis that’s being handed over to the youth. Creating a world that seems so distant yet so near.
The book is a voice for the next generations that have to fix what the older generation left them with. It is beautifully written, so direct, revealing how the world is so close to falling apart as well as tackling the generational climate crisis. It’s a cautionary tale of what not doing anything will create.
An excerpt from Lydia Millet’s “A Children’s Bible”
“Do you blame us?” asked a mother. Pathetic-sounding.
“We blame you for everything,” Jen said evenly.
“Who else is there to blame?” added Rafe.
“I don’t blame you,” said Sukey. The baby squawked, and she jiggled it.
The mother looked at her gratefully.
“You were just stupid,” said Sukey. “And lazy.”
Not so grateful.
“You gave up the world,” said David.
“You let them turn it all to s*&t,” said Low.
“I hate to disappoint you, but we don’t have that much power,” said a father.
“Yeah. And that’s what they all said,” said Jen.
“Listen. We know we let you down,” said a mother. “But what could we have done, really?”
“Fight,” said Rafe. “Did you ever fight?”
“Or did you just do exactly what you wanted?” said Jen. “Always?”
