Tackling faith, doubt, and transformation, National Book Award winner Pete Hautman explores a boys unraveling allegiance to an insular cult.A world within a world.Seven square miles of paradise, surrounded by an eight-foot chain-link fence this is Nodd, the land of the Grace. It is all seventeen-year-old Jacob knows. Beyond the fence lies the World, a wicked, terrible place, doomed to destruction. When the Archangel Zerachiel descends from Heaven, only the Grace will be spared the horrors of the apocalypse.But something is rotten in paradise. A wolf invades Nodd, slaughtering the Graces sheep. A new boy arrives from outside, and his scorn and disdain threaten to tarnish Jacobs contentment. Then, while patrolling the borders of Nodd, Jacob meets Lynna, a girl from the adjoining ranch, who tempts him to sample the forbidden Worldly pleasures that lie beyond the fence.
