Father of lies : a novel

At the urging of his wife, Provost Fochs reluctantly agrees to see a therapist, Dr. Feshtig. Through the therapist's detailed notes, correspondence from the church, and the provost himself, the provost's sickness emerges and the reader is drawn into the disturbing inner workings of a violent pedophile.The provost relays his crimes in excruciating detail. 'God told me that where evil made its mark, good must follow, burning evil out and purifying the body.' Fochs describes a dream in which he sodomizes two boys from the parish in an effort to exorcise their sins. Soon thereafter, two boys come forward accusing Fochs of that very deed. In another dream he strangles and dismembers a young girl in the woods near his house, where a child from his parish is later found.Brian Evenson holds the reader to the page until the novel's fateful end. En route, he questions whether obedience to God justifies taking every possible liberty, right or wrong. And he brings to light how an institution supposed to be under divine guidance can be as eager as its worldly counterpart to soil its hands in the furthering of the cause of supposed righteousness. A fearless, scathing, and irresistible novel about madness, power, and the hypocrisy of religious institutions. Lay provost Eldon Fochs is a happily married father of four. Based on his disturbing dreams, he may also be a sex criminal. His therapist isn’t sure, and his church is determined to protect its reputation. Written from the perspectives of Fochs, his analyst Dr. Alexander Feshtig, and the letters exchanged between Feshtig and his superiors in the church hierarchy, Father of Lies is Brian Evenson’s fable of power, paranoia, and the dangers of blind obedience. It offers a terrifying vision of how far institutions will go to protect themselves against the innocents who may be their victims. This edition includes an introduction by Samuel R. Delaney (Dhalgren). “Evenson’s literary genius lay in his ability to spread reasonable doubt and blur lines of inquiry.” —New York Journal of Books “Father of Lies stands out among Evenson’s work as the most institutionally critical, morally unsettling.” —Vice “Packed with the kind of psychological tension that creates classics and a critique of organized religion that’s too loud, clear, and sharp to ignore.” —Horror Talk “[Evenson’s] scary fictional treatment of church hypocrisy has the feeling of a reasoned attack on blind religious obedience.” —Publishers Weekly "[Evenson's] scary fictional treatment of church hypocrisy has the feeling of a reasoned attack on blind religious obedience."— Publishers Weekly Provost Eldon Fochs may be a sexual criminal. His therapist isn't sure, and his church is determined to protect its reputation. Father of Lies is Brian Evenson's fable of power, paranoia, and the dangers of blind obedience, and a terrifying vision of how far institutions will go to protect themselves against the innocents who may be their victims. When a provost from the Corporation of the Blood of the Lamb, a religious group, is discovered to be a pedophile, the group launches a cover-up. A look at the way religious bodies soil their hands in furthering the cause of supposed righteousness. A first novel