Gloria Patri

a novel by Austin Ross

"This ominous, gripping novel is a beautifully observed and cleverly structured thriller, a thoughtful and provocative journey into the dark, bloody heart of American lunacy."

—DAN CHAON, National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Sleepwalk

“A pulsating literary thriller.”

—Washington Independent Review of Books

Several years after the bitter dissolution of the Becker family, Richard and Solomon—father and son—die on the same day. Shortly after returning home and still unaware of the violence ahead of them, Naomi and her mother Ruth travel across the country to collect the remains of both men and confront the legacies they left behind. Along the way, Naomi and her mother discover secrets about their family and each other, and soon encounter the dangerous and paranoid militia extremists with whom Solomon—along with an old childhood friend, Andrew Cook—had become entangled. As violent forces collide, Naomi, Ruth, and Andrew are forced to reckon with their pasts and their place in an increasingly dangerous world.

"A family is together and then forever apart in this astute, focused exploration of how fundamentalism and extremism can usurp one's identity to tragic effect. In Gloria Patri, Austin Ross identifies the root of zealousness, a malformed version of love seeped in fear. The story is heartbreaking but the message is powerful in this moving and beautifully written novel. If love can be salvaged, and perhaps that is all that is worth salvaging, faith and hope and new life just might carry us forward."

—SINDYA BHANOO, author of Seeking Fortune Elsewhere, finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize

"With a dark intensity reminiscent of writers as varied as Tim O’Brien, Jesmyn Ward, and even Faulkner, Austin Ross has brought off a family drama full of arson, intrigue, and mystery. Gloria Patri simply brims with energy and fierce, evocative intelligence. Not a book you’ll soon forget."

—DANIEL TORDAY, two-time winner of the National Jewish Book Award and author of The 12th Commandment

“Engrossing . . . a great novel.”

—RACHEL KING, author of Bratwurst Haven

"Gloria Patri is a journey to a far-off, terrifying country—except the country is ours, the time is now, and the danger is deeper and more pervasive than we could have imagined. This is a world that’s worth knowing . . . and the people that inhabit this world are worth knowing too, even when their journey is hard to watch. You won’t be able to take your eyes off it.”

—KEVIN HAWORTH, author of The Discontinuity of Small Things, finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize

"Set in the world of fundamentalism, religious and nationalistic extremism, and domestic terrorism, Gloria Patri is a novel that can be at times hard to read—as it can be to live in—but it is also a page-turning, hard-to-put-down joy that I wanted to start over as soon as I'd finished. A little like a mash-up of Dan Chaon, Brian Evenson, and the current events of our daily news, all while feeling wholly like its own thing, it is the kind of magic trick that the best novels strive for. I’m not sure how Ross pulled it off."

—AARON BURCH, author of Year of the Buffalo 

"This timely novel unfolds against a backdrop of evangelical, fundamentalist anarchy. The novel reveals itself as a mystery as it moves back and forth through time and encompasses: survivalism, militias, bombings, conspiracy theories, racism and white supremacy, murders, infidelity, and religious hypocrisy . . . This powerful novel almost hurts, but it also hints that there may yet be a way to heal."

—JOAN CONNOR, winner of the AWP Award for Short Fiction and author of How to Stop Loving Someone