Kneeling before God
A coming-of-age novel that follows the aftermath of a fictional school shooting in Vancouver, Canada. Four POV characters struggle to cope with the rift torn in their lives and the chain of events that leads them all to become broken people.
The novel focuses heavily on themes of youth and lost innocence, as well as dealing with religion and purity. The character's inability to see what the future holds ties together the disparate plot lines; hence the evocation of Nostradamus in the title
Tropes Present In This Work:
- Asshole Victim: Jason, especially when he betrays Kent by impregnating his wife. Reg also counts as one, given that he truly loved his son despite the harsh religious fundamentalism that he imposed.
- Axes at School: Unfortunately. A Columbine-esque school shooting kicks off the story and takes the life of one protagonist at the very beginning of the novel.
- Coming of Age Story: Prior to the shooting, Jason and Cheryl snuck off to Las Vegas for a weekend, resulting in Cheryl becoming pregnant out of wedlock.
- Despair Event Horizon: Reg narrowly avoids this at the end of the novel, posting copies of his letter to Jason around the woods in the hope that he might somehow read one.
- Distant Finale: The story concludes well into Jason's adulthood, years after the initial shooting.
- Elopement: Cheryl and Jason ran off to Las Vegas on a whim to get married and consumate their marriage prior to the events of the novel.
- Face of a Thug: Yorgos, who works as an enforcer for Jason's boss.
- Fake Psychic: Allison claims to be a fake psychic who receives a "real" vision about Jason's whereabouts. It turns out he has been feeding her information in the event that he ever goes missing.
- Functioning Addict: Jason drinks heavily but has somehow kept his life together all these years.
- Girls Love Stuffed Animals: A stuffed giraffe given to Heather by Jason plays a critical role in Heather's POV chapter.
- Innocence Lost: The characters present at the scene of the shooting are scarred forever, although none more than Jason and Cheryl, the former of whom kills one gunman with a rock and the other who dies in the attack while pregnant with the former's child.
- Sex As A Right Of Passage: Cheryl and Jason are impulsively married in Las Vegas and consumate their relationship there. This is especially taboo, given their membership with the Youth Alive! worship group.
- Switching P.O.V.: The novel is divided into four sections, each following the story of a different POV character.
- Teen Pregnancy: Cheryl's POV reveals that she was pregnant with Jason's child. Subversion in that she dies in the shooting before the world at large knows about it.
- The Fundamentalist: Reg treats his sons harshly and justifies his abusive behaviour with religion. He even ruins his budding relationship with Ruth out of a refusal to divorce Jason and Kent's mother. Also counts as HolierThanThou
- Truth in Television: The Vancouver Shooting in the novel is based off of the 1999 Columbine Massacre.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Quite the opposite: Most characters have an ambiguous ending and we never find out what happened to Jason.
