The End of the World Is Rye

Cottrell’s debut novel can’t decide whether it’s serious or silly. The premise is grim: God’s multiple aspects must come together to keep one of them—the Creator’s Insanity—from being manipulated by God’s darker elements into destroying the world. Depicting God by personifying its disparate and often conflicting thoughts as physical beings is clever, but the execution is sorely lacking. Most of the jokes are low-hanging fruit, such as making Leviticus a blathering bigot, and pointing out the contradiction of asking Mormons for beer. The attempts to explain complex religious history, such as the early persecution of the Mormons or why the world has moved past Old Testament texts, frequently interrupt the flow of the comedy. The book also suffers from occasional overwriting and self-satisfied smirking. Without a clear narrative direction, the author and reader wander together in an unsatisfying desert of words with no hope of a promised land. (July)