The Island Gospel According to Samson Grief
Published by Radiant Press
Satirical magic-realism abounds in this modern myth narrated by Samson Grief, a reclusive painter living in Mount Russet, Prince Edward Island. While struggling with a creative block, he is confronted by three redheaded strangers who identify themselves as Judas, Shylock and Fagin, figments of Samson’s imagination and messengers sent by a genderless deity named the Supreme One. Having decreed the Middle East to be a hopeless mess, the Supreme One wants PEI to be the new Promised Land and tasks Samson with building the Island’s first synagogue to get the cosmic wheels rolling. Scared, confused and seriously doubting his sanity, Samson eventually, though grudgingly, accepts the challenge and comes up against political intrigue as well as other obstacles along the way.
Readers of Steven Mayoff’s darkly humorous novel should prepare themselves to expect the unexpected. The Island Gospel According to Samson Grief provides a rollicking journey through an audaciously reimagined Prince Edward Island, a place bubbling over with intrigue, crowded with unforgettable characters both odious and ordinary, and where divine intervention is a daily occurrence. Utterly original and wildly entertaining. - Ian Colford, author of Witness and The Confessions of Joseph Blanchard, winner of the 2022 Guernica Prize.
Hilarious ontological and cultural satire canopied by sacred mystery: layered and intelligent, comforting and terrifying, schmaltzy and bittersweet. The Island Gospel According to Samson Grief fuses realism, magic realism, zeitgeist, fear, and love into a most delicious and satisfying novel. - Michelle Butler Hallett, author of Constant Nobody, winner of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Prize
This book is a unique look at power, politics, faith, and people in today's world. As absurd as Samson's story might seem on the surface, it's really not that much more absurd than the world we live in - power hungry people and the wrath of Mother Earth. Steven Mayoff offers us a chuckle at the same time as holding up a mirror. A thoroughly enjoyable political satire ironically set on the quaint, quiet land that begat Anne of Green Gables. - Naomi MacKinnon, Consumed by Ink book blog
The Island Gospel According to Samson Grief is an ambitious novel that delivers beyond its promise. - Cynthia Ramsay, The Jewish Independent
The absurdist story is at times poignant, and mostly very funny. The polished prose unfurls so engagingly that the story evaporates before the reader, then lingers like a mist in their memory. It is unique and wonderful and extraordinarily pessimistic at times, yet cleverly lighthearted. - Jake Swan, author of Grantrepreneurs
Don't let this book's cheeky tone fool you. It has undercurrents. - K.R. Wilson, author of Call Me Stan: A tragedy in Three Millennia, long-listed for the Leacock Medal for Humour
There is a lot to dig into in Steven Mayoff's book. It is a tightly packed 345 pages, so buckle up and get ready to laugh, and be a little mad that this is not too far off the reality we're living in at the moment. - Alison Gadsby, founder of Junction Reads reading series.
Mayoff's exuberant novel, The Island Gospel According to Samson Grief, resembles more closely the peripatetic fiction of Gary Barwin. Where Barwin gallops at a zany pace, Mayoff canters smoothly in his picaresque across PEI. - Micheal Greenstein, The Miramichi Reader
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