Act of God: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries) - Softcover

"A darkly comic jewel of a novel . . . Act of God is an act of love, one that is no less funny or endearing for the toughness with which it is bestowed." --The Boston Globe

"Reads like an urbane spin on the Book of Job. . . An antic yet poignant study of who you become when you lose everything . . . Laugh-out-loud funny. . . . Invigoratingly unpredictable." --Seattle Times

"In this swiftly paced, niftily written comedy turned horror novel, even the most settled lives are upended, the tiniest character flaws come back to bite, and love and redemption arrive when you least expect them." --More

"A compact, droll farce, light-hearted and pleasurable as a chocolate truffle, yet with a nugget of hard, somewhat unpalatable truths in the center . . . Ciment has the bracing mindset of Ambrose Bierce or Mark Twain, George Alec Effinger or Tom Disch." --Locus Magazine

"This novel breezes along, fizzing with wit as it sails . . . Ms. Ciment's interestingly quirky -- but not cute -- characters suggest human buoyancy, while her deft sentences and cleverly chosen details set a bracing pace that keeps the full force of the novel's questions about responsibility and forgiveness in check until the last page is turned. Then readers may look back and consider what we might really mean by an act of God." --The Washington Times

"[Ciment's] marvelous complexity as an artist is that her two final scenes mingle horror, humor, and tenderness as they lead us toward a final image that perfectly captures the damaged grandeur of the human condition. That's always her essential subject, whether she's cracking jokes about it or plumbing its sorrows--usually both at the same time." --The Daily Beast

"Remarkable . . . a novel that is as surprising and moving as nature itself . . . Act of God is a work to be treasured, respected and, most of all, enjoyed -- like life itself." --Cedar Rapids Gazette

"Rich, quirky characterizations, witty insights into human nature and cruel twists of fate turn the initial absurdity of the narrative into a profound, suspenseful story . . . thoroughly entertaining and unforgettable." --Shelf Awareness

"In a feat of literary magic, Ciment slips an abundance of suspenseful action, incisive humor, far-ranging wisdom, and complex emotion into this inventive, caring, devour-all-at-once novel of self, family, community, and doing right." --Booklist

"Keenly intelligent . . . Ciment orchestrates an increasingly complicated plot with consummate skill." --BookPage

"Beautiful, tightly controlled, and fascinating . . . A winner." --Bookriot.com

"Humanity, warmth and wry humor light up Ciment's noirish novel . . . This absorbing novel about a luminescent fungus affixes itself to your psyche like a spore and quickly spreads to your heart, setting everything in its wake aglow." --Kirkus (Starred Review)

Jill Ciment’s books have been hailed as “stunning,” “powerful,” and “provocative.” Alice Sebold has called her works “beautifully written.” Now the author ofHeroic Measures (“Smart and funny and completely surprising . . . I loved every page.” —Ann Patchett; “Brave, generous, nearly perfect.” —Los Angeles Times) has given us a contemporary noir novel that starts out a comedy of errors and turns darker at every hairpin turn.
 
It’s the summer of 2015, Brooklyn. The city is sweltering from another record-breaking heat wave, this one accompanied by biblical rains. Edith, a recently retired legal librarian, and her identical twin sister, Kat, a feckless romantic who’s mistaken her own eccentricity for originality, discover something ominous in their hall closet: it seems to be phosphorescent, it’s a mushroom . . . and it’s sprouting from their wall.
 
Upstairs, their landlady, Vida Cebu, a Shakespearian actress far more famous for her TV commercials for Ziberax (the first female sexual enhancement pill) than for her stage work, discovers that a petite Russian girl, a runaway au pair, has been secretly living in her guest room closet. When the police arrest the intruder, they find a second mushroom, also glowing, under the intruder’s bedding. Soon the HAZMAT squad arrives, and the four women are forced to evacuate the contaminated row house with only the clothes on their backs.
 
As the mold infestation spreads from row house to high-rise, and frightened, bewildered New Yorkers wait out this plague (is it an act of God?) on their city and property, the four women become caught up in a centrifugal nightmare.
 
Part horror story, part screwball comedy, Jill Ciment’s brilliant suspense novel looks at what happens when our lives—so seemingly set and ordered yet so precariously balanced—break down in the wake of calamity. It is, as well, a novel about love (familial and profound) and how it can appear from the most unlikely circumstances.
From the Hardcover edition.