Not Wanted on the Voyage

Not Wanted on the Voyage is a 1984 novel set prior to and during the event known as “the Flood”. However, the setting is not in accordance with the traditional Judeo-Christian telling. Instead, it is heavily steeped in magical realism, including unconventional interpretations of mythical creatures, oblique references to alchemy and arcane magic, and a plethora of conflicting anachronisms that lead the reader to frequently revise their understanding of the world. However unusual the world may be to the reader, the Noyes family are comfortably set up in their routines, though recent unnatural events have been alarming.

When Dr. Noah Noyes receives a distressing message from Yaweh himself, he knows that his world is about to change. He has no idea how right he his. His dysfunctional family soon plays host to a depressed God, who is fixated on the evils of humanity and shows a worrying level of interest in the idea of water making unwanted things disappear.

The novel follows the family members in their struggles to make sense of the changing world around them, and one another’s behavior. Dr. Noyes is a violent narcissist desperate to maintain control over his family through the use of force and dogma. This fact is not helped by the fact that God has effectively committed suicide, leaving him without the guidance of the only entity he respects and answers to. The rest of his family is along for the ride as the ark is built, including the sometimes-bitter, alcoholic, Mrs. Noyes; the simple-minded Shem; his stoic wife, Hannah; Japeth, a recently traumatized and increasingly violent young man; Emma, Japeth’s child-bride; Ham, the pacifist astronomer; and his new wife, Lucy, who is none other than the fallen angel Lucifer himself.

Over the course of the story, each of the characters must confront the truth that the world they have known and understood is gone, destroyed in a flood by an absent God. In God’s absence, they are left to make sense of their new reality however they can.