Rent Fallen

David Maine takes the Genesis story of Adam and Eve and runs with it, imagining the family's daily life--both the joy and the trouble and confusion of being the first people to live in the world, after their expulsion from the garden of Eden. The centerpiece of the novel is Cain's murder of his annoying brother, Abel, and the ways he finds to live with his grievous sin. Maine's previous novel, THE PRESERVATIONIST, was a similarly lively reinvention of Noah and his ark.