“The characters in Modern Gods traverse oceans, time zones and political situations as part of Laird’s project to pry apart the very structures of worship and locate the systems they have in common, among them storytelling and ritual cruelty … Laird dazzles ear and eye with his kinetic prose, animating city, countryside and, later, tropical jungle … Whereas the inner lives of Stephen, Alison, Liz’s parents and the victims of the pub shooting are rendered with deftness and sympathy, Liz remains something of a cipher; her fears, desires and grief — if she has it — remain opaque. This thin characterization becomes manifest in the New Ulster sections of the novel, where we’re confined to Liz’s perception … Still, the dynamism Laird has conjured in New Ulster — a trill of incipient violence; a mass imbibing of a hallucinogen that leaves the BBC producer prone and vomiting — keeps us reading, and the tragic climax resonates powerfully with the Northern Ireland sections of the novel. Apart from any theory, the events of the story leave a vivid impression of the opportunistic mythmaking, sectarian conflict and pragmatic greed at the heart of these religious systems.”
–Jennifer Egan, The New York Times, June 26, 2017
