The Origin of the Brunists

Having read Coover's later books, I was rather skeptical if his earlier ones would be as good - and was pleasantly surprised. In fact, I would rate Coover's first novel as his best work: taut, earthy and powerful, it chronicles the rise and fall of a cult group called the Brunist (following the name of the so-called founder of the group, Giovanni Bruno) and how even a small, seemingly harmless and insignificant group of people can become potentially threatening to the larger community. But what I truly admire about this novel is the slow, subtle building of the narrative terror and hysteria. Coover is indeed a master of suspense and anti-climaxes, building up very tensed episodes to end them in slick, sometimes frustrating, bathos. But this only makes the novel more rewarding as the reader is never on solid ground. The prose continuously shifts and distabilises the reader's suppositions, making it almost impossible to stop reading (this is not an exaggeration). I highly recommend this electrifying novel and hope that it will reach a very wide audience.

Robert Coover's first novel, Origin of the Brunists, shows how he won so many awards for his poetry and short fiction. This is a book you won't forget. The book throws a strange group of definitely substandard people together, adds a set of bizarre events, shakes, and comes up with the most bizarre - but plausible - religion you have ever seen. Metaphysics, virtual Forteanism, downright stoicism, you name it, it gets thrown in and sort of works. The book is a study of the individuals, not the religion, but the religion serves to hold the people together. I haven't read this book in 15 years, and I'm aching to get another copy. If you like this book, try Coover's Universal Baseball Association - J. Henry Waugh, Prop., or a collection of his poetry and shortstuff, Pricksongs and Other Delights. At least one of these is in print.