Pastor's Son's Cruelty: A Harrowing Inheritance

Addie E Citchens's "Dominion" is a sharp portrait of cruelty and inheritance set in the fictional town of Dominion, Mississippi, at the turn of the millennium. The novel examines the violent manifestations of male entitlement, embodied by the charismatic son of a prominent Black pastor. This young man, known as Wonderboy, moves through his community with a dangerous ease, his charm masking a deep-seated brutality.

The narrative unfolds through the alternating perspectives of Wonderboy's mother, Priscilla, and his teenage girlfriend, Diamond. Priscilla, who writes her husband's sermons and maintains the family's outward grandeur, becomes a case study in female martyrdom and endurance. Diamond, seeking belonging, becomes tragically bound to Wonderboy, experiencing the sharp edge of his cruelty.

Citchens astutely interrogates religious performance as a theater for power, particularly through the figure of the patriarch, Sabre Winfrey Jr. His public piety masks private cruelty and hypocrisy, excusing his son's actions with scripture. The novel is also lauded for its glorious, delicious humor and vivid rendering of Southern-Black idiom and Mississippi life.

Ultimately, "Dominion" is a tale about inheritance—of masculinity, female submission, and generational grief. It is a bruising, funny, and deeply intelligent novel about how women's lives are warped by men's whims and cruelty, and what becomes possible when they imagine lives beyond those who diminish them.