“The Colony”: “Survivor” meets the apocalypse

Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:01:00 +0000

The apocalypse is going to be awesome, don't you think? What could be more exciting than watching the whole world go up in flames on the evening news?

Oh yeah, we probably won't have any electricity or TV reception. But there'll be plenty of other things to look forward to, like setting our favorite furniture on fire just to boil drinking water, or tirelessly working to create an ant-free perimeter around our dilapidated huts, or teaching our dogs to catch squirrels and bring them back, maimed but not eaten.

I can really see myself thriving under apocalyptic conditions. I bet I'll have a great attitude about the whole thing! I bet I'll get really creative with maimed-squirrel cuisine, and people will come from blocks around just to sample my Squirrel Cacciatore ...

And to club me over the head with a bat, steal all of my food and water, and kill and eat my two dogs. That's the one thing about the apocalypse I'm not looking forward to: getting murdered by my hungry next-door neighbors.

“Colony Girl”

Thu, 16 Sep 1999 16:00:00 +0000

The protagonist of Thomas Rayfiel's "Colony Girl," a novel about a Midwestern religious cult, is named Eve. But does she have to be? Couldn't someone named, say, Jennifer question theological authority? Eve ("Just Eve. No last names in the Bible") is a fatherless teenager who moved with her mother to "the Colony" as a small child. She takes bites out of several varieties of forbidden apples -- sex, power, employment. Like her biblical namesake, she gains knowledge but little peace.

A charismatic leader named Gordon presides at the Colony. Gordon, Eve's mother's ex-boyfriend in their former life, exerts a power and fascination over his congregation, Eve included. "We all feared and craved him," she recalls. Gordon has escaped the black-and-white stereotypes usually assigned to communal religious extremists: He is affable, hilarious and smart, loosening the restrictions on his adolescent followers right about the time they would be tempted to rebel. His personality makes for a story that's complex and at times contradictory; just as Gordon allows Eve the unheard-of freedom of taking a summer job on a highway construction crew, he becomes engaged to one of her 16-year-old friends, prompting Eve to grumble, "There should be a Newer Testament ... One where you don't get married just because you start getting your period."

Salon.com > The Colony

“The Colony”: “Survivor” meets the apocalypse

“Colony Girl”