Son of the Morning

by Joyce Carol Oates

Elsa Vickery, daughter of an agnostic small-town doctor and his pious wife, is gang-raped at the age of seventeen. Since her father is unable to obtain a legal abortion for her, she has a son, Nathan, who is brought up by his grandmother as a devoted Christian. At the age of seven, Nathan begins to experience visions of Christ. When the boy is eight, his grandfather reads the Gospel for the first time in thirty years and he is horrified, concluding that Jesus was "a cruel psychopath." Soon after this, he dies from a stroke, leaving Nathan completely in the care of his grandmother.

Nathan becomes a boy preacher, and later the charismatic leader of a church, which is accumulating vast riches from donation. With every year, his visions become more and more grandiose. In one episode of the novel, he is almost seduced into fornication and puts out his eye in self-punishment.

After he survives an attack by one of his followers, Nathan goes into hiding, and the church eventually disappears.