The settlement of Wahrheit, founded in exile to await the return of the Messiah, has been waiting longer than expected. Pastor Helfgott has begun to feel the subtle fraying of the communitys faith. Then Matthias Orion shoots his wife and himself, on the very day their son Benedict returns home from boarding school.
Benedict is unmoored by shock, severed from his past and his future. Unable to be inside the house, unable to speak, he moves into the barn with the horses and chooks, relying on the animals strength and the rhythm of the working day to hold his shattered self together. The pastor watches over Benedict through the year of his crazy grief: man and boy growing, each according to his own capacity, as they come to terms with the unknowable past and the frailties of being human.
Barb takes care of the web orders here at Boffins, and is your contact for book club enquiries. She spends all her spare time curled up on the couch reading and for the last several years has reviewed books on the Afternoon Program on ABC radio Perth.
A small German religious group, led by their young pastor, Edmund Helfgott, lives quietly in rural South Australia some time in the late 19th century. One day their peace is shattered by a murder suicide in their community which leaves teenager Benedict Orion orphaned. Alone on the farm he once shared with his parents, Benedict retreats to the barn and withdraws from the human world. Unable to to consider what has happened, or face what is to come, the boy focuses all his attention on the here and now and the lives of the horses he now lives with, attuning himself to their moods and rhythms. Pastor Helfgott visits, hoping to bring some comfort to Benedict, but increasingly concerned about his condition. This is a remarkable book. Given that it opens with such a violent act, and there is more violence to follow, its soothing tone is testament to the quality of the writing. It is essentially a tale of the healing power of animals, of time, and of nature.
