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The Sheltering
"'You set yourself up as judge, jury, and executioner,' Pamela had said, but that was you set yourself up as angel, and await the word of God."
Luther Redding lost his job, and almost lost his wife, Pamela, and teenaged daughters Katie and Lucy, when the real estate bubble burst in Florida. Now he pilots a Reaper drone over the mountains of Afghanistan from a command center in the bowels of Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base, studying a target's pattern of life and awaiting the command to end that life. Meanwhile Bobby Rosen has returned home from his tours in Iraq to a broken marriage and an estranged son, his promising military career cut short in a moment of terrible violence in a Sadr City marketplace. As the tales of Luther and Bobby unfold, Mark Powell masterfully engages with the vexing, bifurcated lives of combatants in the global war on terror, those who are simultaneously here and there and thus never fully freed from the life-and-death chaos of the battlefield.
As Bobby sets off on a drug-fueled road trip with his brother Donny, newly released from prison and consumed by his own inescapable impulses, a sudden death in the Redding household sends Luther's daughter Katie spiraling into grief and self-destruction. Soon the lives of the Reddings and the Rosens intersect as the collateral damage from the war on terror sends these families into a rapid descent of violence and moral ambiguity that seems hauntingly familiar to Bobby while placing Katie in a position much like her father's―more removed witness than active participant in the bloody war unfolding in front of her. Overarching questions of faith and redemption clash with the rough-hewn realities of terror and loss, all to explosive ends in Powell's dark vision of modern Americana.
Novelist Ron Rash has deemed Powell "the best Appalachian novelist of his generation." In this, his fourth novel, Powell broadens the southern backdrop of his earlier work into a sprawling thriller taking readers from the Middle East to Charleston, southern Georgia, Tampa, Miami, New Orleans, and into the storied American West. In its themes, perspectives, and pacing, The Sheltering recalls the work of Robert Stone, Jim Harrison, and Ben Fountain while further establishing Powell as a unique voice capable of interrogating unfathomable truths with a beauty and cohesion of language that challenges our assumptions of the human spirit.
Luther Redding lost his job, and almost lost his wife, Pamela, and teenaged daughters Katie and Lucy, when the real estate bubble burst in Florida. Now he pilots a Reaper drone over the mountains of Afghanistan from a command center in the bowels of Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base, studying a target's pattern of life and awaiting the command to end that life. Meanwhile Bobby Rosen has returned home from his tours in Iraq to a broken marriage and an estranged son, his promising military career cut short in a moment of terrible violence in a Sadr City marketplace. As the tales of Luther and Bobby unfold, Mark Powell masterfully engages with the vexing, bifurcated lives of combatants in the global war on terror, those who are simultaneously here and there and thus never fully freed from the life-and-death chaos of the battlefield.
As Bobby sets off on a drug-fueled road trip with his brother Donny, newly released from prison and consumed by his own inescapable impulses, a sudden death in the Redding household sends Luther's daughter Katie spiraling into grief and self-destruction. Soon the lives of the Reddings and the Rosens intersect as the collateral damage from the war on terror sends these families into a rapid descent of violence and moral ambiguity that seems hauntingly familiar to Bobby while placing Katie in a position much like her father's―more removed witness than active participant in the bloody war unfolding in front of her. Overarching questions of faith and redemption clash with the rough-hewn realities of terror and loss, all to explosive ends in Powell's dark vision of modern Americana.
Novelist Ron Rash has deemed Powell "the best Appalachian novelist of his generation." In this, his fourth novel, Powell broadens the southern backdrop of his earlier work into a sprawling thriller taking readers from the Middle East to Charleston, southern Georgia, Tampa, Miami, New Orleans, and into the storied American West. In its themes, perspectives, and pacing, The Sheltering recalls the work of Robert Stone, Jim Harrison, and Ben Fountain while further establishing Powell as a unique voice capable of interrogating unfathomable truths with a beauty and cohesion of language that challenges our assumptions of the human spirit.
305 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
3 people are currently reading
380 people want to read
About the author
Mark Powell
11 books56 followersMark Powell is the author of six novels. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Bread Loaf and Sewanee Writers’ Conferences, and in 2014 was a Fulbright Fellow to Slovakia. In 2009, he received the Chaffin Award for contributions to Appalachian literature. He holds degrees from Yale Divinity School, the University of South Carolina, and The Citadel. He lives in the mountains of North Carolina, where he teaches at Appalachian State University.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
July 29, 2014
Powell's latest is surely his best to date. The power and force that he imbues his characters with us ever-present but, when everything finally comes together, it hits you with all the strength of a category 5. At that point, too, it is too late to run or hide from what Powell unleashes but that is the thing, you don't want to. Instead, the best thing to do is to simply stand and let what happens overtake you.
July 22, 2014
A complicated and subtle book that should be read and taught.
August 4, 2014
Don't let the flashy cover art fool you, Mark Powell has not abandoned high literary fiction. On the contrary, Powell's latest book taps deep philosophical and religious roots that blossom into a contemporary story about our post 9-11 reality. Like Denis Johnson's Tree of Smoke, Powell titled his book after a military operation called "The Sheltering" in which remote drone pilots "shelter" the homeland by killing terrorists overseas using Reapers armed with Hellfire missiles. And the Biblical references branch out from there (the Holy Land, glass darkly, Lot's wife, grapes of wrath). From this seed, two parallel stories sprout and eventually merge rather unexpectedly (see if you can figure it out before the reveal). Powell places several clues along the way which neatly fall into place like the alignment of the planets in the penultimate scene. I think the two story lines are linked by the psychological trauma caused by war (whether killing in the war theater or from a remote location on the other side of the globe) and the impacts those damaged soldiers bring back to the homeland and their families. Throughout the book, Powell purposefully repeats the words "gauze" and "gauzy" as if to imply dressings on our wounded souls. The grand theme of the almighty father figure watching over us, sheltering us from nothingness is contrasted with our government's drone assassination program designed to shelter the homeland from terrorists while in between is the all important father/son relationship. Powell dedicated this book to his son Silas.
And don't think Powell has abandoned his Appalachian roots either. In Ron Rash's book Serena, Rash describes "a sheltering" as follows: as if the mountains were huge hands, hard but gentle hands that cupped around you, protecting and comforting, the way…God's hands would be." (Page 197-198) Only someone born there would be able to evoke this ethos.
And don't think Powell has abandoned his Appalachian roots either. In Ron Rash's book Serena, Rash describes "a sheltering" as follows: as if the mountains were huge hands, hard but gentle hands that cupped around you, protecting and comforting, the way…God's hands would be." (Page 197-198) Only someone born there would be able to evoke this ethos.
August 30, 2014
Amazing writing---extremely complicated plot line, one of my best reads in quite a while!
December 29, 2020
How do we choose between good and evil, and who defines those qualities?
May 31, 2025
“Jesus wrote only in the dust. Primitive and ephemeral. Everything fluid, everything capable of change.”
Written with biblical intensity, The Sheltering is the work of one of America’s finest writers at the very top of his game. A perfunctory internet search of Mark Powell will inform you that he was educated at The Citadel, the University of South Carolina and Yale Divinity School. The latter explains the spiritual nature of the book. Pete Duval puts it perfectly on the back cover:
“If, as Marilynne Robinson has said ‘anything that is written compassionately and perceptive lay probably satisfies every definition of religious’ then Mark Powell's The Sheltering is a deeply religious book”
There are parallel stories at play, one about Luther Redding who is drone pilot flying Reapers over Afghanistan, the other about Bobby and Donny Rose who are haunted by the deaths of two boys. It is complex but the two stories align perfectly at the end. There is a lot going on: alcoholism, divorce, salvation, death. The boom and bust of the property market. Set in Florida, decaying fruit act as a metaphor. Holding a mirror to America post Iraq/Afghanistan, it's haunting, atmospheric and philosophical. The writing is outstanding. Not only my favourite book this year, one of my favourites ever. A brilliant and essential read.
Written with biblical intensity, The Sheltering is the work of one of America’s finest writers at the very top of his game. A perfunctory internet search of Mark Powell will inform you that he was educated at The Citadel, the University of South Carolina and Yale Divinity School. The latter explains the spiritual nature of the book. Pete Duval puts it perfectly on the back cover:
“If, as Marilynne Robinson has said ‘anything that is written compassionately and perceptive lay probably satisfies every definition of religious’ then Mark Powell's The Sheltering is a deeply religious book”
There are parallel stories at play, one about Luther Redding who is drone pilot flying Reapers over Afghanistan, the other about Bobby and Donny Rose who are haunted by the deaths of two boys. It is complex but the two stories align perfectly at the end. There is a lot going on: alcoholism, divorce, salvation, death. The boom and bust of the property market. Set in Florida, decaying fruit act as a metaphor. Holding a mirror to America post Iraq/Afghanistan, it's haunting, atmospheric and philosophical. The writing is outstanding. Not only my favourite book this year, one of my favourites ever. A brilliant and essential read.
October 22, 2014
I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway and was pleased to discover this thought-provoking, engaging story.
As Christina discusses in her review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), the book is laden with errors - a shame because the prose is quite good and these mistakes are distracting. I hope the book receives a good second edit before they print the paperback edition.
The characters shine in this novel. Powell creates believable, deep male and female characters with such distinctive life perspectives that it is hard to know what Powell thinks himself... Each one, even psychopathic Donny, is rendered with such empathy and love that I found myself rooting for all of them in spite of their many failings and conflicting points of view. The relationships are equally well conceived, never flat.
I was pulled in by the plot, but this aspect of the book is not as strong as the characterization. I found the "reveal" both predictable and so heavily foreshadowed that I was neither surprised nor moved when it was finally made explicit.
As Christina discusses in her review (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...), the book is laden with errors - a shame because the prose is quite good and these mistakes are distracting. I hope the book receives a good second edit before they print the paperback edition.
The characters shine in this novel. Powell creates believable, deep male and female characters with such distinctive life perspectives that it is hard to know what Powell thinks himself... Each one, even psychopathic Donny, is rendered with such empathy and love that I found myself rooting for all of them in spite of their many failings and conflicting points of view. The relationships are equally well conceived, never flat.
I was pulled in by the plot, but this aspect of the book is not as strong as the characterization. I found the "reveal" both predictable and so heavily foreshadowed that I was neither surprised nor moved when it was finally made explicit.
November 29, 2014
I got this book through the Goodreads Giveaways, and I laboriously just finished it. I enjoyed the book at first and was curious about the plot, but I just could not get myself to keep reading in the second half. It was just so sad, all the time. I get that the themes the book is dealing with are tricky and not meant to be 'happy' - PTSD and the consequences on the soldiers' families - but man…it never gets better, does it? Too much sadness for me. I didn't even really get emotional about anything for that matter, I just wanted to be done with the book and move on.
Besides, the ridiculous number of grammatical errors and typos made me cringe. To name a few I've found: it's (instead of its) numerous times , "when you're money works" (uh? possessive 'your'), "San Fransico", "by February it's was ten times" (another example of it's/its). I believe it's poor editing rather than poor writing, but come on, if you're going to publish a book, make sure the grammar is flawless.
Besides, the ridiculous number of grammatical errors and typos made me cringe. To name a few I've found: it's (instead of its) numerous times , "when you're money works" (uh? possessive 'your'), "San Fransico", "by February it's was ten times" (another example of it's/its). I believe it's poor editing rather than poor writing, but come on, if you're going to publish a book, make sure the grammar is flawless.
April 24, 2016
So tried to get into this book but could not
Bobby and his brother Donny were just going down hill with bobby coming back from Iraq a broken man and his brother getting out if jail a broken man and they just cannot get into the normal way if like with their sons and wives
Luther coming back from Afghanistan who also cannot fit into his like with his wife Pamela and his two kids Lucie and Katie who can't can't understand why their father committed suiside
And who can't live a normal life
I understand war is hard but others live and survive when they come back into the normal life and go on
But these families just could not
Interesting how it will be in the book club when we have the author there to discuss
Bobby and his brother Donny were just going down hill with bobby coming back from Iraq a broken man and his brother getting out if jail a broken man and they just cannot get into the normal way if like with their sons and wives
Luther coming back from Afghanistan who also cannot fit into his like with his wife Pamela and his two kids Lucie and Katie who can't can't understand why their father committed suiside
And who can't live a normal life
I understand war is hard but others live and survive when they come back into the normal life and go on
But these families just could not
Interesting how it will be in the book club when we have the author there to discuss
March 29, 2016
Luther Redding pilots a Reaper drone over the mountains of Afghanistan from a command center in the bowels of Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base. Meanwhile Bobby Rosen has returned home from his tours in Iraq to a broken marriage and an estranged son, his promising military career cut short in a moment of terrible violence in a Sadr City marketplace. As the tales of Luther and Bobby unfold, we learn the bifurcated lives of combatants in the global war on terror, those who are simultaneously here and there and thus never fully freed from the life-and-death chaos of the battlefield.
I have mixed thoughts about this book and definitely need the discussion with the author and my book club scheduled at the end of April to dig deeper into this book. I will edit this review after that meeting.
I have mixed thoughts about this book and definitely need the discussion with the author and my book club scheduled at the end of April to dig deeper into this book. I will edit this review after that meeting.
July 9, 2016
I received this book through the Goodreads giveaway in exchange for an honest review. Let me preface this by saying it is extremely well written. But it is not light-weight reading. Deep, dark, and depressing....there is nothing uplifting here. It is very introspective. It takes on difficult subjects such as PTSD and family dynamics. As I live in central Florida, I related to the familiar locales. But if one is looking for a fun summer novel, this is not the one.
October 10, 2014
Ron Rash, an author whose books never disappoint gave a resounding endorsement to Mark Powell the author of The Sheltering which led me to pick up this novel.
The long term effects of war on not only those in combat, but the family is one of the themes of this novel. This book made me quite sad for all involved. There did not seem to be a character that was truly happy.
The long term effects of war on not only those in combat, but the family is one of the themes of this novel. This book made me quite sad for all involved. There did not seem to be a character that was truly happy.
September 10, 2014
Powell’s powerful meditation on the ramifications of war is complex, but nimble, shifting into multiple points of view both artfully and authentically, each character unique, but all sharing a certain crippling grief.
March 3, 2015
I was so looking forward to reading this book but struggled through the whole thing.
The characters were people I didn't care about at all and the story was disjointed.
I felt the author was proving he was a great writer vs telling a story that blended all the tales.
The characters were people I didn't care about at all and the story was disjointed.
I felt the author was proving he was a great writer vs telling a story that blended all the tales.
August 30, 2014
Fabulous story, beautifully written.
November 10, 2014
well written but too depressing and sad and I can usually take "it"
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews