Based on the true life of Benjamin Purnell, who promised eternal life and youth to his worshippers, especially the young girls of the community, Kasischike revives this story, beginning with the death of a 16-year-old girl, disguised as the death of an old woman. The novel alternates between real newspaper advertisements for the sect, or articles criticising it, and fictional scenes from the lives of these young worshippers. Another one of those devious sects where the guru abuses the women. Nicely written, but I felt that the text was flying over the story without really getting into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“He\u2019d come, his mother said, into the world with a crown of bruises around his head. When they\u2019d washed the blood from his infant body, they saw he was covered with a second skin\u2014a powdery brightness that took days to wear away, and when it finally did, it left a cool light behind that would last all the days of his life. And he was the twelfth of twelve. Born in the month of resurrection. Born in the last hour of the day. Born between the waxing and the waning moons. There were twenty-one letters in his full name\u2014which divided by the trinity is seven… The Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. The seven lamps of fire burning around the Lord. The seventh angel. Seven stars and messengers. The seven apocalyptic seals…”<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Based on the true life of Benjamin Purnell, who promised eternal life and youth to his worshippers, especially the young girls of the community, Kasischike revives this story, beginning with the death of a 16-year-old girl, disguised as the death of an old woman. The novel alternates between real newspaper advertisements for the sect, or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[270,276],"tags":[111,20,107],"class_list":["post-18547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books-2025","category-challenge-solidaire-2025","tag-abuse","tag-adolescence","tag-religion"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/nick-page-NyfSW-Soix4-unsplash-scaled.jpg?fit=2109%2C2560&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18547"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18554,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18547\/revisions\/18554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/redheadwithabrain.ch\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}