Shadow of the Mountain: A Novel of the Flood
Scott Rezer’s hugely intriguing new novel Shadow of the Mountain presents a version of the Noah story from the Old Testament that is both richly imagined and radically different from anything readers are likely to have read before.
This Noah is Noach-ben-Lemekh, the son of a king, the descendent of a royal house, a grizzled and no-nonsense governor of men whose life prior to the Flood Rezer presents in complicated and vibrant detail far surpassing the Old Testament’s vague one-line summation that Noah was “blameless in his generation.”
Rezer adds well-done political intrigue, vexing questions of faith, and a deep and challenging portrait of Noach himself. The action builds slowly and expertly as the unthinkable disaster of the Flood looms closer and closer, and Rezer’s so skilful at infusing his entirely human stories with drama that most readers will likely start to think of the forty days and forty nights of rain as something of an anti-climax.
Very strongly recommended.
