In our age of "born-again" Christianity, of neofascism under the banner of biblical truth,… it is not surprising that Joyce Carol Oates's ninth novel, Son of the Morning—which deals with an "inspired" evangelical preacher named Nathanael Vickery—should be her most ironic work of fiction to date, and perhaps her most broodingly serious. Like her earlier masterpiece, Wonderland …, it attempts no less than a thorough analysis of our culture; while Wonderland approaches contemporary American life through its intellect, its scientific and technological ambitions, Son of the Morning examines the phenomenon of America's newly awakened religious impulses, especially in their more peculiar manifestations.

The novel opens with a series of powerful scenes which embody the characteristic Oatesian vision of rapacious nature: a pack of wild dogs … is trapped and killed; a young girl is brutally raped on her way home from church (and thus is Nathanael Vickery conceived...