When the English Fall

April 24, 2017
Williams’s satisfying postapocalyptic novel shows the complex interlacing of Amish and “English” (non-Amish) life. Jacob, an Amish father, lives in a small Pennsylvania district with his wife and two teen children. His daughter, Sadie, has preternatural abilities to foresee the future, a curious note in an otherwise very realistic story. In a journal, Jacob recounts the immediate effects of a massive solar storm that wipes out all electronics. Over two and a half months, the community is called to provide for the cities that were less prepared for the loss of modern life, and increasingly desperate outsiders begin to threaten them, driven to violence by need. This new world tests the Amish injunction to peacefully sacrifice. The diary format means the scientific details of the storm’s effects are vague and the most horrifying events are only rumored; this increases tension and keeps the narrative from becoming as dehumanizing or shockingly violent as other tales of the end of the world. The unique spin draws readers into an alarmingly plausible story of contemporary civilization’s demise. Agent: Kathleen Davis Niendorff, Kathleen Davis Niendorff Literary.

Starred review from May 15, 2017
When the going gets tough, the Amish get going.Williams' (The Strawberry Church, 2016, etc.) novel is the lyrical and weirdly believable diary of an Amish farmer named Jacob, documenting the world as seen from his Pennsylvania farm after climate change hits hard and some sort of atmospheric event knocks out the power grid everywhere. The English of the title are what the Amish call everyone outside their order; during a bizarre solar storm, their planes fall from the sky. Then their refrigerators, computers, lights, generators, phones, and everything else stop working. The English are in big trouble. But who knows how to get by without electricity and gasoline? Who has cellars full of preserves and drying rooms full of jerky? The Amish, that's who. The families of Jacob's community willingly fill National Guard vehicles with food every week to share with their neighbors in Lancaster, but as people in the cities begin to starve, the situation turns chaotic and violent. Until this catastrophe kicked in, Jacob's main worry was his daughter Sadie, 14, who has a serious seizure disorder but is renowned for her predictions and clairvoyance. Those visions will come in handy now. He also has an interesting and touching relationship with an English guy named Mike, the distributor who sells his handmade chairs. Mike's original problems--custody battle, unhappy kids, pregnant girlfriend--are dwarfed by what he faces after the collapse, and Jacob's comment about him proves prophetic: "The sorrows are planted, and they grow strong in the earth of his life, and they rise up, and there is harvest." A standout among post-apocalyptic novels, as simply and perfectly crafted as an Amish quilt.

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July 1, 2017

When a solar storm destroys anything electronic, Jacob, his family, and his Amish community are, at first, unaffected. However, as more news trickles out about the ever-increasing desperation of the English (whom the Amish term non-Amish) as modern civilization collapses, two worlds are set to collide. When this collision culminates in increased violence, how will one society survive? This postapocalyptic tale is narrated as a series of diary entries from the point of view of Jacob, an Amish farmer. This format is different in that it allows most of the action associated with such novels to take place offstage, thereby heightening the tension when things come to a head. In addition, this perspective provides more introspective focus, allowing the author to expound on philosophical, and indeed theological, crossroads that are likely to appear if something like this were to happen. VERDICT Making his fiction debut, Williams (The Strawberry Church) has written a quiet, ideas-focused dystopian novel that will stay with readers long after they have turned the final page. [A July LibraryReads Pick.]--Laura Hiatt, Fort Collins, CO

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2017
The title of Williams' first novel may conjure thoughts of England and WWII, but this book is about a different sort of invasion. In the Pennsylvania countryside, Sadie, a young Amish girl, suffers spells and visions that prefigure a solar storm. The storm interferes with electrical connections and effectively stalls society overnight. Planes fall out of the sky, and cities burn. The Amish, meanwhile, go about their normal fall routines, staying busy harvesting and preparing for winter. News of what is happening to the English reaches them, and they offer assistance, but it soon becomes clear that the need is too great. Desperate English begin ransacking farms and killing neighbors, leaving the Amish to consider their fate. Told via Sadie's father Jacob's diary, in the quiet, simple prose of a quiet, pious man, this is an intriguing take on the dystopian novel: an army memo on the book's first page makes clear that this and Jacob's other diaries, found long after the event, are vital historical documents.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)