Minor Prophets

“A remarkable exploration of what it is to believe, to lose, and to start again.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Readers will have a tough time turning away from this chilling dive into fanaticism.”—Publishers Weekly

“Minor Prophets is a painfully intimate depiction of devotion and betrayal, love and abuse, a cult rendered movingly from the inside. With her stunning, elegant prose, Hurley peers deeply and compassionately at one girl-prophet, at the hurt we cause when we make sacrifices to a higher purpose, and at the ordinary love worth scrabbling toward —Liz Harmer, author, The Amateurs

“A haunting meditation on family, faith, and the devil inside, Minor Prophets follows the daughter of a cult leader as she tries to escape her father’s long shadow. Blair Hurley has managed a rare feat, writing a page-turner with prose so beautiful, you’ll also want to stop and linger over each chapter.” —Laura Hankin, author, The Daydreams

“Minor Prophets is a story for our times, but it’s also a timeless story about family and friendship, love and power, staying put and breaking free. It’ll keep you turning pages late into the night, and leave you hollowed out when you turn the last page. If you need a guide for the end times, Hurley’s who you want for the job.”—Rachel Beanland, author, Florence Adler Swims Forever

An emotionally incisive story about survival, complicity, and the long shadow cast by family and faith. Blair Hurley’s characters leap off the page, struggling, stumbling, and continuing to try; I believed in them fully and doubtlessly.”—Lauren O’Neal, editor, Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church

Deep in the remote wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, Nora is growing up within a militant apocalyptic religious cult. When her father, the group’s charismatic leader, discovers his young daughter’s gift for speaking in tongues and prophesying, he employs her to recruit people in their community. But as she grows older, Nora begins to question her faith, her father and her predesignated role, and must choose between committing herself fully, or being exiled into the foreign and frightening world beyond.

Several years later, Nora is working as a hospice nurse in Chicago, struggling to navigate the baffling customs of the “normal” life she is now leading. When a letter arrives, warning her to “prepare herself,” the lockbox of Nora’s childhood is thrown open, sending her hurtling back into the shattering truth of what really happened on the day of her escape.

BLAIR HURLEY is the author of The Devoted, which was longlisted for The Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize. Her work has been published in The New England Review, Electric Literature, The Georgia Review, Guernica, Paris Review Daily, West Branch, and elsewhere. A Pushcart Prize winner and ASME fiction award finalist, she has her A.B. from Princeton University and her M.F.A. from New York University. She lives outside Toronto.