Synopsis
Praise for Dave Maine and The Preservationist:
"The Preservationist is funny, tender, intelligent, energetic, irreverent, and worshipful. It is an enormous juggling act of families, animals and faith, and it kept me engaged through every page. I imagine Noah would be enormously pleased with David Maine's novel, I know I was." - Ann Patchett, author of Bel Canto
"I loved The Preservationist. It's a funny, convincing amplification of the Biblical story."
- Tracy Chevalier, author of The Virgin Blue
"Once they were strangers to us. Distant as specks. No more! Thanks to David Maine it is in the daily, the ordinary "Noah family" the "what's for breakfast?" the aching feet, the little insults or winks, the slap on the back, the gathering of insects in cupped hands that we know them now as we know ourselves, the family next door preparing to face the unknown, the "I am certain," the magnificent, the awful, the wonderful, the weird, the big. The Preservationist was great. Very moving and enjoyable and clever."
- Carolyn Chute, author of The Beans of Egypt, Maine
"Maine simply, wisely, asks himself what it was like to be there, "when the rain began to fall." For me, the strength of this book lies not so much in its entertaining characters as in the wonderful details of this old brand-new world.¿In just these details, small and large, Maine convinces us that the world Noah worked so hard to save is indeed worth preserving."
- Jincy Willett, author of Winner of the National Book Award
"If, like me, you've always wondered how Noah actually built his ark, and managed to fit all those animals on it, and survived forty days and forty nights of rain and flood, The Preservationist is the book for you. A funny, cheeky, irreverent, wonderfully original first novel, informed both by Biblical history and Dave Maine's joyous imagination."
- Jim Fergus, author of One Thousand White Women
"The Preservationist is delightfully wry and witty, throwing light on man's-and woman's-eternal folly in the name of God and of love. More, this retelling of an ancient tale is a great deal of fun to read, its characters etched with an acid affection that makes them unforgettable."
- India Edghill, author of Queenmaker
The New York Times - Janet Maslin
The Preservationist is poised somewhere in the gap between holy visions and practical details (like the hygienic upkeep of a floating "barnyard in a box"). It is an elegant, inventive book and in no way a cynical one, despite the author's keen appreciation of the incongruous. After having to answer questions about just how much timber he needs for this undertaking, Noe closes his eyes and thinks, "Things were much clearer when God was explaining." The book resounds with the gravity of Noe's mission even as it invents the quotidian details of his story.