In one scene, a mother sets the dining room table, over and over and over, no longer a person, just a shell of one stuck on an endless loop through a moment from the past. “Fevered” victims re-enact the same scenes and actions in their homes, over and over, madly, until they die or are put out of their misery by Bob and his gang. The virus - Shen Fever, it is called in the book - zombifies its victims by destroying their brains with obsessive nostalgia for the past. Ma sees this nostalgia as destructive, even deadly. Everyone in the band lives in a state of paranoia and fear of Bob, who carries guns and forces the group to listen to long lectures on the meaning of life. The swift changes in mood between the lyrical past and the horrific present lend the novel texture and a sense of propulsion and suspense. Post-disaster, Ma injects menace and violence into Chen’s story, as she heads to Chicago with a band of survivors led by a frightening cult figure named Bob. I’d always felt fond of it, maybe because it was the least ostentatious Bible I’d produced. The ribbon markers were made of sateen instead of silk. The book block edges boasted copper-hued spray edge duller compared to the more expensive gold gilding. The cover was made of leather-like polyurethane instead of leather. In order to hit the publisher’s target cost, substitutions had been made. The Daily Grace Bible was an everyday Bible for casual use, but Three Crosses Publishing also wanted to imbue the product with a high-value feel of an heirloom.
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