Eric Rickstad’s ‘Lilith’ on guns and school shootings : NPR

That of Eric Rickstad Lilith is one of the most uncomfortable novels you’ll read this year. Full of sadness and rage, this timely story cuts to the heart of the gun debate and school shootings with a scalpel of words.

Lilith forces readers to look at one of the ugliest parts of American culture, a phenomenon that is all too common and extremely rare in other countries. It is a novel that acts like a mirror; it shows you society with love and great insight into what motivates us, but also with brutal honesty and in a harsh, unflinching light.

Elisabeth Ross is a single mother and teacher raising her son Lydan on her own. One morning. Lydan wakes up feeling “icky” about the day and begs Elisabeth to stay home. But working mothers rarely take a day off, so even though she wants to stay at home and spend the day with her beloved boy, she takes him to school and gets to work. That day, a man burst into the school with a powerful rifle and killed many people, mostly children. Elisabeth breaks the rules and manages to get some of her children out, then returns to rescue Lydan, who suffers devastating injuries that leave him almost dead.

In the aftermath of this traumatic event, Lydan is a shadow of his former self. He becomes strangely haunted in many ways, often speaking of dark things and saying that he is already dead. After leaving the hospital, the boy spends his days limping around the house with injuries that will change his life forever, taking painkillers to get through the day, and dealing with PTSD. Meanwhile, Elisabeth must deal with bosses who want to fire her for breaking the rules – and a seething rage that threatens to boil her alive. The system is broken. Bad men make money from every tragedy. Elisabeth needs her insurance more than ever and her bosses want to grant her a six-month suspension without pay.

Then something clicks. Someone has to do something and she’s the perfect person to do it. Elisabeth transforms into a character she names Lilith, the first wife of the biblical Adam, a woman who refused to serve a man. Elisabeth plans to take revenge and then must face the consequences of her actions. Is she a hurt, loving mother who does the right thing or is she no better than the man who shot up the school? The answers to the questions his actions raise are not easy, and they constitute the heart of Lilith a real emotional enigma.

While reading Lilith is an endurance exercise. Lydan’s destroyed body and psyche, the unreasonableness of Elisabeth’s bosses, and the growing pain and anxiety all add up to a powerful novel that you can’t look away from, but that hurts you on every page. Rickstad, with impeccable pacing and economy of language, delves deep into the gun culture that uses every school shooting as an excuse to celebrate guns and sell more guns. Furthermore, he discovers how misogyny is a part of not only this culture, but everything Elisabeth has ever experienced. As Elisabeth develops her plan and becomes Lilith, the story of wickedness and abuse has shown that women become something that is always present, and the men who insist on perpetuating this become something she wants to fight against: “They shape the world through violence and conquest, pillage. and rape and genocide, oppression and control; they use their own language to shape a male-dominated, male-centered, and male-first world. »

Perhaps the most powerful thing Rickstad accomplishes here is that he never states answers while constantly presenting the right questions. Yes, we know that school shootings are horrific and that this country’s obsession with guns — and the push by some to deregulate them altogether — is unhealthy and dangerous, but the anger we feel and the violence we wish on those who don’t seem to care. dead children are no better. Who bombed the school doesn’t matter here; it is a symptom of a much more serious illness. Elisabeth and Lydan matter. They are at the heart of this narrative, and it is a reminder that the discourse exists, but that the people behind it, those who suffer and die and those whose lives change as they become caretakers, are more important than they are. no matter what political debate. . This is a courageous and timely novel that directly touches the wounded soul of this country.

Gabino Iglesias is an author, book reviewer, and professor living in Austin, Texas. Find him on X, formerly Twitter, at @Gabino_Iglesias.