Akedah: the Binding

by Conrad Bishop, Elizabeth Fuller

The Promise, the Promise, the Promise . . . A casual barstool conversation with a mystery man--perhaps a Las Vegas bigwig, perhaps a sociopath--hooks chronic loser Vern McGurren on the chance of a lifetime, requiring a road trip from Chico CA across Yosemite and Death Valley to the monumental stone outcrop of New Mexico's Shiprock. It's a chance to bridge the gap between a desperate father and suicidal son who know each other too well, but it veers into an hallucinatory replay of the Biblical Abram/Isaac sacrifice. Four voices tell the story. At the center is the father, Vernon McGurren, a middle-aged Walmart employee and chronic loser making a last, fierce grab for self-respect. His teenage son Zach, gifted and suicidal, is torn between love and loathing for his father. The gritty mother Merna, left behind in a single-wide trailer--the 21 st Century nomads' tent--faces the daily grind while grappling with dread. And the inscrutable instigator Stubblefield--perhaps a sociopath, perhaps a Las Vegas bigwig, perhaps Yahweh Himself--pulls all the strings. Conrad Bishop & Elizabeth Fuller's plays have been produced Off-Broadway, in regional theatres, and in thousands of their own performances coast to coast. Their public radio series Family Snapshots and Hitchhiking off the Map have been heard nationally. Their books include three other novels, a memoir, and two anthologies of their plays.

234 pages, Paperback

Published April 1, 2020

About the author

55 years of theatre work & writing in collaboration with Elizabeth Fuller. Ph.D. Stanford, but left college teaching to found a professional theatre ensemble, Theatre X, then formed The Independent Eye, now in its 41st season. 60+ plays & revues produced, both by the Eye and theatres nationally, as well as 4 public radio series. Bishop & Fuller twice recipients of NEA writing fellowships. Many years of national touring. Raised in Midwest, lived in Chicago, Milwaukee, Lancaster, Philadelphia, and now Sebastopol, CA. Began writing prose fiction in 2012.

Reviews

[Mark Chello · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a disturbing, rich, transcendent, profane, and visionary work! Profane in its refusal to grant immunity from critical thought to some sacrosanct, foundational tropes of the Western canon: righteousness, piety, obedience, and faith. Transcendent in its finding an entirely different narrative setting from which to think about themes that have exercised religious thinkers since antiquity. And visionary in its breaking free from a literal or discursive voice to attain a tonally diverse, variously mordant, elegiac, searing, or hallucinatory re-invention of narrative materials long since believed to be exhausted. Making it new. Posing the largest of questions, fearlessly. And bringing it all home in a way that preserves our humanity, however flawed and post-Romantic. Caution: received ideas under deconstruction.