Unquenchable Fire

In a near-future America that has been transformed by a feminist revolt and where magic and the miraculous have become commonplace, Jennifer Mazdan finds herself chosen as the vehicle for a bigger change yet to come after a visit from a divine messenger.

More than four decades after the Revolution, America has become a land in which magic and ritual coexist with daily life. Guardian totems protect suburban blocks; rituals of enactment precede rises up the corporate ladder; and storytellers--the new media stars--keep alive the tales of the legendary Founders, who literally awakened the earth and shattered the technological world. The residents of Poughkeepsie have learned to live comfortably in this empowered world, until a young suburban divorcee receives a visitation and becomes the center for yet another "reawakening." The author of numerous books on the Tarot, Pollack has crafted a powerful--and powerfully funny--vision of a mystical yet modern world. Enlightened and knowledgeable in tone, this recent winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for speculative fiction is both a cautionary tale and a paean to the New Age. First published in Britain, this is a priority purchase.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

This compelling, surrealistic fantasy takes place in the U.S. 87 years after a second Revolution--mystical, feminist and green; in this America, the laws of nature embrace miracles as everyday but honored occurrences, which are monitored and controlled by the Spiritual Development Agency. Picture Tellers--icons who have replaced film and rock stars in the public's affection--recount tales of the Founders, such as Mohandas Quark, who overcame technophiles and secularists to bring about the Living World. Yet much here remains familiar. One of the towers of the World Trade Center belongs to the Association of Oracles and Speakers, while the other holds the modern electronics panoply; a Bagel Nosh sells a sandwich called Founder's Delight. In Poughkeepsie, Jennifer Mazdan, nearly 30 and three years beyond the annulment of her marriage, has an unusual dream, finds herself miraculously pregnant and then is thwarted by mysterious forces when she seeks an abortion. She is fated to bear a child who will have unimagined effects on a complacent new order. Spinning her tale from strands of the commonplace and themes and rituals of many religions, Pollack ( 78 Degrees of Wisdom ) develops a new mythology for her skewed, strangely familiar society.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An intricate feminist/New Age fantasy, set in the near future, throws an ordinary young woman into the center of a mythic drama: she is to be a postmodern Mary, immaculately conceiving a feminine savior who'll restore the spirit of a revolution gone sour. Jennifer Mazdan, preoccupied with her divorce, doesn't care much about Teller's Day in Poughkeepsie--Tellers are something like shamans, celebrity storytellers with the power to transport their listeners inside the very essence of the myths, or ``Pictures,'' they tell. Magical spiritual rites and sacrifices govern every detail of life in Jennifer's world, but the elite Tellers, who represent and interpret the will of the Founders (the mostly feminine gang of heroines who've sparked a great spiritual revolution) have become corrupt and empty of real spirit. Everywhere religion has become rote. Now, Jennifer is compelled to hear a certain Teller only because of the awful nagging pressure of the neighbors in her ``hive''--a sort of mystical Levittown. Inexplicably dropping into a deep sleep on the way, however, she has a strange dream that somehow impregnates her. Although she tries to ignore her growing pregnancy, she gets more and more evidence that she's been picked by a supreme ``Agency'' to bear a child who will return her empty world to the days of great feminist spiritual heroines. As Jennifer tracks her husband through the streets of Manhattan, more auspicious events take place--an ice- cream vendor, for instance, tells her: ``there are only two things in the world. Suffering and ecstasy. Do you understand?'' Finally, exiled to an ugly apartment and attended by three midwives and the holy ice-cream man, Jennifer gives birth to the little girl who will bring down the empty Tellers. Widely imaginative and entertaining, but with a thousand loose threads. Despite the beguiling, often witty details, Pollack (The New Tarot--not reviewed) overloads the book. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.