Introduction

"Weible deftly unpacks the cunning charm of the cult leader in this unsettling novel...a powerful story."

--Kirkus Reviews

In this compelling novel, a young girl is thrust into a dark and dangerous faith.

Celia’s family is like so many others struggling in a bad economy. In the small town of Brock, South Carolina, Celia’s father delivers newspapers, and her mother works in a dentist’s office. They are a hardworking, industrious family, but that isn’t enough. When Celia’s father suffers an injury and is unable to work an extra shift, the family begins to crack. Celia’s mother loses her job soon afterward.

In an effort to cope with their poverty and depression, Celia’s parents become more active in their church. The church, led by the charismatic young preacher Barrett Higgins, gives Celia’s parents hope for a better life. They become more and more enthralled with his warnings of the Second Coming of Christ and an upcoming revolution against the secular world. When the family loses their house, they move onto Barrett’s compound. There, in the heart of a growing and powerful cult, Celia begins to realize the horrible truth behind the pastor’s teachings.

Prophet of Loss explores the dark charisma of cult leaders and the desperation that leads a congregation to blindly follow them into deadly places.

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Excerpt

In the early days of the compound, before rape was followed by champagne and before she helped murder a man, Celia crouched over a baby bird. Its feathers were nothing like feathers as she knew them but a gray down resembling fur that parted in the breeze revealing a thin line of nude raw flesh, like a scar. "Repent," she demanded of the small puff of sin. It peeped unrepentantly. Her friend Rebekah, squatting beside her, thrust a splay-fingered hand over the bird and cried out, "Cast your sin to the…" she turned her head into her shoulder, pondering whither the bird's sin would best be cast, "…the wolves," she decided. "And taste the bread and jam that is Christ's salvation." The bird remained an inert lump for a few seconds, then shat small and white in the dirt.

"It poops in protest," Celia declared. The girls laughed. The bird peeped. Overhead its mother's screams poured through the branches of the tree. Celia and Rebekah were out back of the farmhouse Celia shared with her parents, singing a song about hell, when they discovered the fallen starling. Celia had invented the song, sung to the tune of My Boyfriend's Back, a song she and her mother listened to in their old lives.

My savior's back and you're gonna be in trouble

Hey la, hey la, you'll roast in hell

He hates your sin, He'll condemn you on the double

Hey la, hey la, prepare for hell

Celia taught the song to Rebekah. They were developing a dance routine. Since their imaginations were already on the subject, they condemned the creature for the purposes of make-believe.

"He has been cast out as a sinner," Rebekah said. "He has fallen from above and landed in the dirt."

"Then it's up to us to bring him salvation," Celia announced. She rolled the little bird onto its back. With the tips of her fingers she gently spread its stumpy undeveloped wings. It looked like a bird as Celia would have drawn one when she was four or five. A crude blob with short shapeless wings, like a poorly built cross.

"Open yourself to Jesus Christ the Lord and Savior's healing power and he will forgive you," Celia said.

"He suffered and died on a cross for your sins. Don't you even care about that?" Rebekah said. The mother bird swooped close above them.

"Not now," Celia said, as though she was talking to her own mother. The bird went back to its hysterical shrieking in the tree.

"Let's turn our backs on this creature," Rebekah said finally, after the baby bird continued to refuse Christ's mercy.

"Yes, for it is dark with sin and unworthy of our sight," Celia agreed. The girls stood and marched off righteously. They became involved in another game and forgot the baby bird hopping nervously in the dust.

The next day it was still there. Celia stopped when she saw it. It still peeped but quietly now. Its cries went unanswered. The tree was silent. The mother bird was gone. Celia moved the baby bird closer to the tree trunk and brought out a small bowl of water. She didn’t want to bring the bird inside in case its parent came back.

"Maybe someone touched it," Celia's mother said that night. "If someone touched it the mother won't have anything more to do with it."

Celia looked out through her own thinly reflected face in the window. The tree was a dark arm and fist against the starlight. The baby bird was somewhere beneath it. It was just a game but they had been right. It was so full of sin its own mother could no longer stand to have it in her sight.

The next morning the baby bird, too, was gone. There were scratches in the dust where it had sat. A few inches away, like a signature, was the single perfectly formed paw-print of a fox. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

How did you experience the book? Were you immediately drawn into the story—or did it take a while? Did the book intrigue, amuse, disturb, alienate, irritate, or frighten you?

Which characters do you particularly admire or dislike? Did your feelings towards any of the characters change as you got deeper into the story?

Can you pick out a passage that strikes you as particularly profound or interesting?

Does the book remind you of your own life? An event? A person—like a friend, family member, boss, co-worker?

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