But what about Rebecca's allegations then, Brad? She isn't just pulling that out of the air, is she? I have the feeling you might both be right, which might mean the early Christian church might have been more twisted in ideology and practice than the more romantic historians of the faith would have us believe.

Oh, Brendan -- superb review. I'm going out to buy the book today because of it!

the Stranger is so fucking incestuous.

Having climbed in stifling heat through attics of the Goodwin’s, and attics of cow barns in Berwick where farmers have been known to turn up anti-gay rants by Rush Limbaugh really loudly through speakers over the animals upon seeing women with short hair on the property, and attics of foreclosed houses without working plumbing (think weeks in winter below freezing) but with gorgeous stone wall gardens now in disrepair seeking unbound books, thousands of old books to pack into an old university facilities and engineering van with the seats taken out, I’ve sat listening to conversation between the yard sale early bird crowd and the son of the previous owner about benches made of cast iron that have been welded and there are ants climbing towards the shaker furniture in the side yard on a millstone slab and it’s crazy hot, and there’s no water, just one last walk through to see if there are Wallace Nutting prints, or marbles or postcards or proof of the persecution of witches on the wall in longhand scrawl in the kitchen.

Who do you think invented incest anyway? You say it like it’s a bad thing. Any idea how inbred those Puritans were?