From start to finish, Elissa Elliot's "Eve: A Novel of the First Woman" is simply brilliant. The story follows Adam, Eve and their children as they seek to rebuild their lives after being cast out of Eden. On the way, they have to deal with a God who has turned silent, a cold and dangerous world that threatens to kill them by starvation or predation, and the discovery of other people, with strange customs and new gods.

Elliot's new world is vibrant with color, danger, betrayal, lust, bloodshed, and love. Her characters - both mythological and fictional - are deep, complex human beings, so much so that we're frustrated with the protagonists and we take pity on the antagonists. Readers aren't meant to get that invested in characters, but we have no choice as these people - this family - take their first tentative steps into a barren, hostile world after being exiled from Eden.

Befitting a novel about a woman, by a woman, the narration is done by the women of the story - Eve and her daughters Navaa, Aya and Dara. Everything, from the frissom of first love to the pain of childbirth and watching your children grow up and grow away, to that moment of silent lucidity when all is well with the world again, is so beautifully written by Elliot. An interesting note is the incestuous relationship between the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, portrayed as completely normal and natural sexual behavior. Much as she didn't have any choice (I imagine the dating scene back then wasn't exactly thriving), it's a bold move by Elliot, done without sensationalism or euphemism.

The strength of Elliot's story is not just in her words - in her afterword, she details the meticulous research and attention she paid to detail, basing her narrative on both Biblically and secularly historical sources. This woman, and this book, is the real deal.