“Upon This Rock Book 4: Our Townish”
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By David Marusek; A Stack of Firewood Press, 2024; 452 pages; $22.95 paper, $9.99 electronic.
Well into the third decade of the 21st century, the Pilgrim Family who inspired the Prophecy Family in David Marusek‘s sprawling four-volume epic “Upon This Rock” has fallen from the rearview mirror. So too has the time when the standoff between an increasingly radicalized and religiously extremist American right and the hodgepodge of centrist-to-left wing forces hoping to maintain some semblance of normality in a rapidly fracturing nation felt tenuously sustainable. And now, with the country perhaps on the brink of plunging off a cliff from which any return to functionality appears beyond reach, it’s probably a good moment in history for the concluding volume in the series, which, like its predecessors, speaks to our present dilemma in surprising ways.
“Upon This Rock Book 4: Our Townish” is at once the least science fiction and most speculative of the four lengthy books that Fairbanks-based Marusek has penned to tell this tale of religious fundamentalism, alien contact, right-wing politics, and post-apocalyptic survival, set in the fictional town of McHardy, a clear stand-in for McCarthy, where Marusek once lived.
The story revolves around the Prophecy Family, who, like their inspiration the Pilgrims, have holed up in the remote town to battle the government and live out their fundamentalist fever dreams under the authoritarian rule of their violently abusive father. We met them in the first volume, where we were also introduced to Jace Kuliak, a ranger with the Park Service and thus a natural-born enemy of the Prophecys, who finds himself slowly falling in love with one of their daughters, Deuteronomy (who goes by the name Deut).
Over the course of this and the next two installments, the community is stirred up further by the arrival of aliens, a right-wing survivalist militia led by a hate-driven white supremacist, and a homegrown military led by Gov. Vera Tetlin clearly patterned on former Gov. Sarah Palin, another once-prominent Alaskan now all but forgotten. Throughout those books, Marusek juggled all of these forces as they collaborated and clashed in multiple ways. And somehow he pulled it off.
Those first three books dabbled in their share of satire as well, but in the new book, both humor and horror take a back seat to something more interesting.
Book 4 does, however, open with the Apocalypse. A runaway alien planet called Pipnonia had been on a collision course with Earth, and after a brief visit to it by Jace and Deut, there was a slight adjustment in its path, just enough to create what is known to the survivors as the Big Bump. This coincides with disasters breaking out all over the planet, and nearly all of the major and minor players in the narrative getting killed off.
Except not quite. Well before the first quarter of the book has passed, the dead rise again, a reference to the biblical resurrection for certain, although it isn’t quite the paradise they find themselves in.
This is where the story veers away from standard science fiction fare and heads with originality into the well-trod territory of post-apocalyptic survival tales. The aliens fade into the background, as does a badly sidelined Poppy Prophecy, barely present this volume. The town of McHardy has been laid to ruin, the skies are filled with dust, the sun cannot be seen, flora and fauna have all died, and the planet has tilted on its axis, leaving Alaska close to its new equator. A few things do maintain the science fiction element however, most prominently, two major characters who return as what are called “strivers,” robotic replicants created by the aliens and inhabited by the souls of those their bodies duplicate. They offer periodic and cryptic advice to Jace. And the aliens do occasionally appear.
Got all that?
The events that ensue allow Marusek to explore a very different theme than he pursued in the earlier volumes. Here the story is quite straightforward. How do people rebuild a society from next to nothing? Modern conveniences are gone. There is no contact with the outside world, nor knowledge of whether survivors exist elsewhere. Food has to be foraged from the stockpiles that had been stored by residents and newcomers to the town prior to the Big Bump. Order has to be established. Life, somehow, must go on.
This is where Marusek follows the natural evolution of such things. Initially, a state of religiously rooted socialism takes hold. Led by Deut, with help from her siblings and Jace, food is distributed, tasks are assigned, homes are built, and a ragtag village comes into being.
It doesn’t hold for long. Deut’s spiritual teachings, which closely resemble those of Christ, are slowly but surely supplanted by the more organized and somewhat less charitable religion of Pastor Bunyan, who wavers between the different power centers that begin to emerge, torn between his faith and his political prospects. People begin building their own homes and choosing their own means of economic self-sufficiency. A breakaway faction makes a grab-and-dash on community resources, leading to violence. From here a new and more strict organizational structure is imposed, as it must be. Meanwhile, Jace struggles between his natural inclination towards atheism and his love for Deut, which requires him to convert to Christianity in order to be fulfilled.
After three books that mercilessly lampooned religion and politics, “Our Townish,” which is driven less by action than extensive character development, ends the series in a more nuanced place. An unexpected outcome given the nature of the previous volumes.
It also provides a roadmap, perhaps, for finding a better way out of our present impasse. Ultimately, despite their differences, the characters have to work at getting along. Forgiveness for past deeds is granted. A new way forward, albeit one drawn from prior experience, is forged. After all the chaos that transpires across more than 1,000 pages, Marusek has found his way to a surprisingly fitting and genuinely happy ending.
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