Award-winning author Eric Schlich's Eli Harpo's Adventure to the Afterlife isan accessible and big-hearted novel that explores belief and forgiveness as a boy grapples with his faith and sexuality on a rollicking family road trip to Bible World. When Eli Harpo was four, he underwent emergency open-heart surgery, flatlined on the operating table, and for a brief time, went to heaven and met Jesus. Or at least that's what his father, a loving but devout Baptist minister, has raised him to believe. Nine years later, Eli isn't so sure. His rounds with his father to evangelize at hospices and sell his father's self-published book, Heaven or Bust!, feel inauthentic and strange, especially now that he's started having sex dreams about Jesus. Between that and his mother's terminal breast cancer diagnosis, Eli feels further from heaven than ever. But when the famous televangelist Charlie Gideon shows up at the Harpos' doorstep with a proposal to create a new attraction based on Eli's trip to the afterlife at his Bible-themed park, Eli isn't able to say no. As the Harpos head off on a rollicking road trip from Kentucky to Bible World in Orlando, Eli is left to grapple with not just his faith and his sexuality, but also his own parents' messy humanity and what happens when a family held together by mythmaking starts coming apart at the seams. Hilarious and moving, Eli Harpo's Adventure to the Afterlife is a kind-hearted story about self-discovery and the search for truth, wherever it takes you. "Schlich's acerbic yet poignant debut novel tackles queerness and monetized religious fervor . . . Sharp satire blends with powerful emotion and a considerate if skeptical­ approach to religious faith. This delectable send-up is full of heart." ; "Eli Harpo's Adventure to the Afterlife is a hilarious sendup of the spaces where capitalism meets Christianity. But more than that, Eli Harpo is a character to root for as he tries to figure out which parts of his childhood were real, and which are a story that's been told for so long, and so famously, that no one seems to know where the family faith ends and the truth of Eli begins. Schlich is hilarious, compassionate, and cinematic on the page. His readers will gleefully follow Eli Harpo to the afterlife, or anywhere his search for the truth of himself takes him."; "Moving skillfully between farce and pathos, this tale of entangled allegiances keeps raising its stakes in surprisingly affecting ways. What initially appears to be a deliciously comic takedown of a clueless family of religious nitwits (or are they actually canny grifters?) quickly turns into something messier, more complicated-an empathetic and tender look at an all-too-believably human cast of characters in deep trouble and coming apart at the seams . . . and that's before things get really bad, as young Eli, the Harpo family's golden ticket, begins to realize that essential parts of himself don't conform to the script he's supposed to follow. Without ever forfeiting its deft satire, Eli Harpo's Adventure to the Afterlife plumbs unexpectedly moving emotional depths. The result is a big-hearted, wistfully funny, and bracingly wise account of the always painful journey toward self-discovery."; "Eric Schlich is one of the most imaginative writers I've ever read. In Eli Harpo's Adventure to the Afterlife, Schlich introduces us to a boy-turned-adult looking back on a near-death experience that may or may not have shown him heaven. This novel takes readers on a family road trip to Bible World, a religious theme park brought to kaleidoscopic life on the page, and on Eli's lifelong quest to unveil the truth of his own life. Narrated with humor, heart and pathos, this is a boisterous and beautiful book."; "This is a true gem of a novel. Schlich delivers on the brilliant premise-a parallel-universe versi

Mode of access: World Wide Web