In the Shadow of the Ark
by Anne Provoost is a
heretical retelling of Noah's Ark that chronicles Re Jana, a young woman who is
not among the chosen for salvation from the flood because she is an outsider:
her family migrates from the marshes to landlocked territory after her mother is
crippled by a water accident. Re Jana's lover Ham pleads with his father Noah to
allow her on the Ark even though as a concubine, Re Jana is excluded from Noah's
family.
This novel entices thinking outside the box about a well-established story: what
god could be cruel enough to drown the very instruments that created its sacred
vessel? Through Re Jana's alien status in the culture of a desert people, the
reader examines the self-righteous, malicious actions of the chosen versus the
naive struggles of the unknowing during the disaster. Setting aside the
catastrophic circumstances, the characters, who are multi-dimensioned, interact
believably, and the problems in the story are well-presented; however, the prose
is overly simple and dry, which distracts the reader from the story's merit. In
addition, the events can easily be predicted by deductive reasoning coupled with
the amount of pages left in the novel. Due to content and style, this book is
best suited for advanced middle or early high school students. Overall, In
the Shadow of the Ark is not a page-turner, but few people should find
themselves asleep over it.
~ Sarah Lewis, grade 11, Girard High School
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