The Alliance

In Petersheim’s dystopian religious tale, set in the near-future U.S., two very different people—an Old Order Mennonite and a hardened military pilot—are unexpectedly brought together. When Moses Hughes’s plane crashes in Leora Ebersole’s field in Mt. Hebron, Mont., her pacifist Mennonite community takes the injured pilot in, showing their usual hospitality as stories of widespread power outages trickle in from the neighboring Englischers. Moses’s theory about the reason for the outages leads to an uneasy alliance between the Mennonites and the Englischers stranded by the power outages in their area. Leora, forced to lead her family after her father’s desertion two years before, holds tightly to her faith and traditions. But the deteriorating culture around them brings danger to their doorstep, and Leora must wrestle with long-held convictions and fears. She and Moses walk an emotional tightrope as they develop romantic feelings for each other. This unusual dystopian work mixes hope and faith with fear and cynicism as Leora must determine whether her pacifism is merely adherence to her community’s collective belief or a personal, faith-based conviction as well. How valid is violence in defense of loved ones? Will her community stay true to their convictions and faith? Petersheim (The Outcast) focuses less on the outcome of the destroyed society and more on the internal conflict within the characters in this astute meditation on the intersection between belief systems and the politics of aggression. (June)