High as the Horses' Bridles: A Novel, by Scott Cheshire
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High as the Horses' Bridles: A Novel, by Scott Cheshire
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"A powerful book, an unflinching examination of two centuries of American yearning and desire."-Colum McCann, The New York Times Book Review
In a crowded amphitheater in Queens, a nervous twelve-year-old Josiah Laudermilk steps to the stage to deliver his first sermon to thousands of waiting believers. A prodigy, they called him, the next in a long line of faithful men. Decades later, though, after a failed marriage and years away from the church and his home, Josiah (now Josie) finally returns to Queens to check on his father, who seems to be losing his grip on reality. Barreling through the old neighborhood, he's flooded with memories of his past, but when he finally arrives at his family's old house, he's completely unprepared for what he finds. Reaching from 1980 Queens to present-day sunny California to a tent revival in nineteenth-century rural Kentucky, High as the Horses' Bridles is an imaginative and heartbreaking debut from a bold new American voice.
High as the Horses' Bridles: A Novel, by Scott Cheshire- Amazon Sales Rank: #416950 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-15
- Released on: 2015-09-15
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 7.93" h x .86" w x 5.07" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 320 pages
Amazon.com Review
An Amazon Best Book of the Month, July 2014: Scott Cheshire's debut novel opens in Queens, New York in the '80s, where a young Josiah Laudermilk is watching his father address thousands of devout followers about the impending Armageddon--the prophecy of a cult, the proclamations of a rogue sect of the church. After the arresting opening chapter, we jump ahead to decades when the self-exiled Josiah--now Josie--has family returned to Queens to take care of his dying father. It's this complicated father-son relationship that Bridles is focused on, but the novel is very much a bigger story about overcoming failure--the failure of Josie's business, the failure of his father to be a father, the failure of basic humankind. Elegant and careful, Cheshire has penned a novel that is rooted in specific times and places, but its themes and haunting mood will resonate universally. --Kevin Nguyen
Q&A with between Author Téa Obreht, The Tiger's Wife, and Scott Cheshire Scott Cheshire, Credit: Beowulf Sheehan Téa ObrehtI am always interested in stories that expand my awareness of life, that crack open a seemingly unfamiliar and removed emotional terrain that somehow inevitably ends up feeling very much like home. Reading Scott Cheshire’s debut, High as the Horses’ Bridles, I was stunned by the ambition of his project, the effortless way he immerses his reader in the world of evangelical Christianity through Josie Laudermilk, a former child preacher now estranged from the community of his youth. Complex, compassionate, and heartrending this is a story only Scott Cheshire can tell. I was thrilled at the opportunity to ask him some questions about his deft and rousing debut. – Téa Obreht
Téa Obreht: Scott, let me first ask you: why a child preacher? How did this story come about for you?
Scott Cheshire: Well, the easy answer is: I was one. In the religion of my youth, all young men are expected to take the stage at some point and I guess I took to it. Others don’t. And yet I haven’t been a part of that world for well over twenty years, so I think my real interest lies in how faith and a loss of faith daily effects and influences a life, how it plays out in the mind, and how those interior struggles manifest in the physical world. And I wanted to explore that in the context of a family, between a father and son so we begin with Josie as a boy, taking the stage, and we watch his long fall and fight from there on.
TO: Josie starts out as a figure of tremendous spiritual significance for his community, rocketed to hierarchical high ground he will, socially at least, never occupy again as the novel progresses. The remainder of the book is sort of a reverse hero’s journey, a lifetime of playing catch-up to a kind of normalcy that suddenly seems even more remote than the apocalypse he falsely predicts. What was it like living with this character, constructing and inhabiting his world?
SC: I’m so happy to have you describe the novel this way, as a reverse hero’s journey, because it also describes why I had such difficulty writing it. I think all novels are about desire. And yet here I was writing about a young man, a culture, really, that already has what it wants, they have God. Which of course is not to say the faithful of this book do not want for other things. We all have pain. We all have problems. We all suffer. What makes Josie such an interesting character, for me, is not that he loses faith, but that he loses hope. And those are very different things. I think Josie longs for a “normal” life and has convinced himself he doesn’t have the proper tools to build one. So his journey is one toward hope, a restoration of hope, something we all can understand. For that I found my time with him, ultimately, restorative.
TO: So much of the book relies on the size and scope of this narrative. Your exploration of the tension between love and duty, the fragility of familial bonds, is one of the finest and most nuanced I’ve read. Can you talk a little bit about the father-son relationship at the heart of High as the Horses’ Bridles?
SC: The book is kind of a circle, which was my way of trying to represent life and time as we truly experience it, a constant confluence of past and present. Josie is trying to make sense of his life while he lives it, something all of us do every day, and so he lives within the present moment but is also constantly trying square it with the past. And yet for the truly apocalyptic mind, the religiously apocalyptic mindset, time is all, but it’s linear as all things lead toward a final End. Josie is trying to disentangle himself from that perspective, while his father is utterly consumed by it, which of course makes for a very complicated relationship. I like to think the book makes a strong case for love, that love can bridge any two sides, if we let it.
TO: I’m addicted to the idea of place, and this novel is as much about a physical return as it is about emotional homecoming. New York plays a huge role in Josie’s identity. I remember hearing you read the taxi ride through Queens at one of your first appearances, and being floored by the balance you strike between epic scope and intimate detail. Since everybody has their own New York—what’s yours?
SC: I, too, am obsessed with place. It’s instrumental when it comes to identity. With regard to this book, at some point I became aware I was no longer just writing about a family, but also a particular strain in American life. And so it was important to me to build a book of cohesive but varied American spaces, New York, Southern California, and Kentucky.
I grew up in Queens, and so it felt natural to place the story there first. As far as my New York, there’s more than one. There’s the suburban New York memory of my youth, gold-toned Instagram-filtered images of Queens in the 1980’s, of cutting school and hanging out on Liberty Avenue, the smell of Tommy’s Pizzeria, the swelter, graffiti, the screech of the elevated train. But New York, for me, now, is a place of constant movement, overwhelming sensation. It’s a city that, if not for a few key places of dependable comfort and quiet—book store, cafés, parks—I would likely drown in it. The book served as like you say, as a homecoming for Josie, and for me. I fell back in love with my city.
From Booklist Josiah Laudermilk is a phenomenon in the Evangelical Brothers in the Lord church in Queens, New York. A preacher since he was 7, he stuns a congregation of thousands when, at the age of 12, filled with the spirit of the Lord, he issues a prophecy about the coming of Armageddon. But his best friend disappears, his high-school girlfriend drowns, his mother dies of cancer, and he loses his faith. Long after leaving his childhood home for California, Josiah at 37 is divorced, his computer store’s business is lagging, and his father, the primary nurturer of his religion early in his life, is in desperately failing health. There’s a lot for Josiah to reconcile, from the love for his ex-wife, Sarah, who’s moving on in her life but remains close to his father, to his core beliefs about God and death. Cheshire tackles life’s biggest issues through the person of Josiah, whose evangelistic heritage is finally revealed, in a narrative studded with gems of insight about the human condition. An impressively crafted literary first novel. --Michele Leber
Review
“Daring and brilliant...Cheshire captures the anguish that has always driven people of faith -- or no faith -- toward the unbridled promise of a time when 'there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away.' No matter what you believe, fiction writing that delivers us to a moment like that is something of a miracle.” ―Ron Charles, Washington Post
“It's a powerful book, an unflinching examination of two centuries of American yearning and desire.” ―As recommended by Colum McCann in The New York Times Book Review
“Cheshire is a writer of undeniable talent and power. The images in his first novel, High as the Horses' Bridles, are vivid, his language vigorous and bright, and his storytelling passionate...a fine debut novel.” ―Seattle Times
“Deeply imagined...Mr. Cheshire skillfully writes about the burdens and silver linings offered by faith and other inheritances.” ―The New York Times
“A convincing ventriloquist with an ear for all variety of language, from biblical cadence to ethnic dialect and slang, Cheshire - himself a former child preacher - transports the reader from east to west, and in the final section, deep into the past, to the crazed tent revivals of 19th century Kentucky that form the basis for the world that Josie has fled. The writing is fresh and propulsive throughout.” ―San Francisco Chronicle
“It is a testament to the author's storytelling gift that the novel never sags under the weight of its serious subject…. The final section reads with a special elegance, and the light from the far past shines even brighter on this fine novel.” ―Star Tribune (Minneapolis)
“Cheshire's debut novel triangulates between contemporary New York City and Southern California and nineteenth-century Kentucky in this vivid, visceral tale about a son schooled in the holy fire of old-time religion who must seek bold new bonds with his evangelical father, his departed mother, his ex-wife, and his own richly transformed inner life.” ―Elle
“The heart of this novel is the story of this man and his father...A beautiful novel about their relationship, the pull of religion and the things that pull a family apart.” ―Bill Goldstein, NBC New York
“Highbrow...Brilliant...A time-traveling, DeLillo-esque debut.” ―New York Magazine
“Scott's strengths as writer, and as a person: the balancing act between the light and the dark...there is an honest attempt to capture the human condition using language that is both assured and original, in a way I had not seen done in quite so vulnerable a way. This vulnerability shines through on almost every page...This is a funny book, though it's not necessarily always fun. It's sad and mournful, incredibly tender, particularly in the interactions between a father and son. This is a story about love, first and foremost.” ―Tin House
“The truly great American Epic is possible, but rare and profoundly special. Scott Cheshire, with his astounding debut High as the Horses' Bridles, joins that company, effortlessly delivering a beautiful and mysterious story that takes us from the stuffy churches of New York's outer boroughs to California, and then - almost inexplicably, yet in a way that's totally right - to Kentucky in the first years of the 19th century...[I]t is one of the finest novels you will read this year.” ―Flavorwire
“Impressive...human and honest, asking lofty questions while staying down on Earth.” ―The Brooklyn Rail
“Stick with this one -- the book and, more important, the first-time novelist...He's a more earthbound (if less assured) DeLillo, painting familiar subjects -- a scrappy outer borough and a fraught father-son dynamic -- in bold new colors.” ―Vulture
“Electric, rapturous... it's with High as the Horses' Bridles that Cheshire has managed to pack an American epic's worth of Americana in just a few hundred pages...Bridles is a striking debut novel that signals a bright future for Cheshire.” ―Omnivoracious
“It's a bold novel, abounding with contrasts: Cheshire is equally at home writing scenes of domestic conflict and theological debate; Queens and southern California are evoked in equal measures. There's plenty to ponder here: long discussions of family, of friendship, of religious traditions and the rejection of them.” ―Vol. 1 Brooklyn
“Scott Cheshire's High as the Horses' Bridles is one of the year's strongest debuts. This epic novel brilliantly explores themes of family, faith, and desire.” ―Largehearted Boy
“Cheshire tackles life's biggest issues through the person of Josiah, whose evangelistic heritage is finally revealed, in a narrative studded with gems of insight about the human condition. An impressively crafted literary first novel.” ―Booklist
“[High as the Horses' Bridles] might just be one of the more powerfully-written debut novels published this year.” ―Of Blog Spot
“For those interested in exploring the risks of faith through story, High as the Horses' Bridles is a book that readers will want to dig into, turn over, and discuss at length.” ―River City Read
“High As the Horses' Bridles is a great new American epic, one that spans two hundred years, and takes us cross-country from the streets of New York City, to the beaches of Southern California, to the bluegrass hills of Old Kentucky. Cheshire tackles the biggest questions of all, God, love, and death, and he does it with such style and raw psychological insight. Nothing less than Dostoyevskian.” ―Philipp Meyer
“From its opening tour de force to its equally extraordinary conclusion, Scott Cheshire's debut is searing and fierce. His protagonist, Josiah Laudermilk, provides a rare bridge from our familiar everyday to the strange, rich territory of Evangelical Christianity -- and back again. Josiah's - and Cheshire's - brilliant evocations make the whole world new. This novel is truly memorable.” ―Claire Messud
“So many things at once, High as the Horses' Bridles is the heartbreaking story of a family, of a marriage, of the undying affection between a father and his son, and the redemptive power of love. It also happens to be a deep look at one of the more unsettling aspects of our national character--religion as desire. This is a rare and beautiful debut that will have readers thinking of Aleksandar Hemon, of E.L Doctorow, of Don DeLillo.” ―Colum McCann
“Scott Cheshire has made the insane choice to write with nuance and intelligence about religion. High As The Horses' Bridles refuses to dismiss or lampoon the kind of people who are usually just fodder for comedy. Because of this, his debut novel is tender and enlightening, riveting and raw. The man can write but, just as importantly, he keeps his eye on the humane just as surely as the divine.” ―Victor LaValle
“The prophets of High as the Horses' Bridles live struggling in anticipation of the Apocalypse they think they want and struggling in denial of the one they already have. In a three-book bible, written to profound and devastating purpose, Scott Cheshire counts the cost in love of inviting the end of the world.” ―Chris Adrian
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful. Vivid and thoughtful, with a surprise at the end By Monika High as the Horses' Bridles follows the Laudermilks, a family obsessed with the end of days. At the age of twelve and already known as a talented boy preacher, their only son, Josiah, stands before his church and shares an apocalyptic vision in which he declares that the end of days will occur in the year 2000. Not long after, Josie begins to doubt the validity of his own prophecy.This novel is an interesting look into the high hopes and enormous pressure that come along with being raised in a fundamentalist household. Cheshire uses all three family members to bring the reader right into the crushing, overwhelming feelings that accompany these expectations: Josie's coming of age and struggles with faith, his father's mental unraveling, and his mother's fight against cancer. I couldn't help but be struck by the characters' sincerity and at times, even their tenderness, which make the events in the novel all the more heartbreaking.So much about this story exposes how false the teachings of their church are, how twisted their views. But High as the Horses' Bridles isn't as much a scathing commentary on fundamentalism as it is a look into how multifaceted people are, the reasons why they hold potentially damaging beliefs so close, why they keep coming back for more, and how difficult it is to break free from a legalistic culture. There is also a twist at the end of the book which not only ties in with the Laudermilk family, but gives readers a look into the early days of American apocalyptic movements.There is so much more I could say about this novel! It would make a fantastic book club read; there are endless angles to explore. I also couldn't help but be reminded of the importance of books like Faith Unraveled by Sarah Held Evans, The Rapture Exposed by Barbara R. Rossing, and Salvation on the Small Screen and Pastrix by Nadia-Bolz Weber.4 1/2 stars.I received a copy of this book from the publisher to be considered for an honest review.
24 of 31 people found the following review helpful. A PROMISING DEBUT (4-1/2*) By David Keymer There are three different narratorial voices in this extraordinary novel, whose title comes from a passage in Revelations: "When the End comes the blood will be high as the horses' bridles."The first portion is narrated in the third person, the omniscient viewer/narrator: It`s Queens in 1980, the Howard Theater, the Theater of Lights. Elder Brother Kizowski has organized a revival meeting -four thousand people are in attendance--and Josie Laudermilk, twelve years and already a noted Bible scholar, is one of the speakers. But when he stands in front of the congregation, the spirit seizes him out of nowhere: he throws down his prepared notes and speaks extemporaneously, not even knowing himself where his words come from. He predicts, in front of all four thousand, that the End of Days will befall in the Year 2000. The rest of that first section fleshes out Josie's life as a child: his parents are zealots but still he loves them, his classmates think he's a weirdo, his one close friend Izzy just vanishes one day and is never seen again. (Years later, Josie learns that he was probably abducted and murdered.)The long center part of the book -the heart of the book-- is narrated in the first person by Josie himself. It's twenty years later. His world is coming unglued. His mother has died, his marriage has folded, his business is failing, now his father shows signs of dementia. Josie flies east to take care of him. Flitting back and forth between the present (Josie in Queens, Josie and his father back in California) and remembered past (Josie's marriage, his earlier business success and current failure, the collapse of his marriage, his on-again off-again relation with his father, his father's ailments).The tail end of the book is presented in the third person again, but this time it's set in 1801. An ancestor of Josie's, a young boy, meets a Negro. They visit a tent revival, hunting for the boy's father. Things happen. It's difficult to capture what's going on in this section but it's unsettling and somehow it frames the story of Josie and his father two hundred years later and makes a kind of sense out of it.A good way into the book, Josie is talking on the phone with his ex-wife Sarah who is a translator. She translates from Hebrew. She tells Josie that she's reading the Book of Revelations again. "It feels like a peek inside your [she means Josie's] brain. Every book in Hebrew is eaten by this book. It leaves nothing."She says he should read William James. "He says if you want to see the significance of a thing, look at the exaggerations. The perversions of a thing. This is your book," she tells Josie.High as the Horse's Bridles is a puzzling book. It offers no solutions to anything. It's overwritten at times but by and large, the hyperbolic description matches what it describes, which Is hyperbolic and also heart wrenching and scary and heartWARMING too. (This is not a book that goes all one way.)When there narrative voice works in this extraordinary novel, and most of the time it emphatically does, you feel just a little bit what it must have been like to be Josie, who grew up in a closed family with extreme views and over-strong enthusiasms. The portrayal of Josie's relation with his father as the father prepares to die is exceptionally well handled.NOTE: This novel received very positive reviews in the NY Times and Washington Post this past week. dk)
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Still thinking about this book By Olivia Johnson I was completely enthralled with High as the Horses' Bridles and read it in a few sittings (and very late at night.) This book struck so many chords with me, it's hard to list them all. (But I will try.)1. The language was gorgeous. Poetic, vivid, memorable and emotional. And it just carried me along through the story and inside Josiah's life.2. There was so much to think about in terms of family culture and what things we inherit from our parents (and their parents and on and on). How our relationships with our parents change when we realize they aren't infallible.3. The romantic relationships were so honest and interesting.4. There were heartbreaking moments from Josiah's past that hit me really hard, which just goes to show how invested I was with the characters.5. Made me think about what it means to be saved or to try to save someone else.in short. amazing.
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