Propitiation. is a Southern Gothic literary novella set in eastern Kentucky, where addiction, religion, and inherited violence shape the life of Caster Jenkins, a preacher's son raised to believe that suffering and devotion are inseparable.
After his mother's suicide and years of abuse beneath his father's authority, Caster enters adulthood burdened by addiction, instability, and a faith he can neither abandon nor trust. Relationships collapse under the weight of dependency and memory, while each attempt at escape only returns him to the same inherited patterns of self-destruction and shame.
As Caster moves through cycles of addiction, loss, desire, and spiritual longing, the boundaries between faith and violence begin to erode. What initially appears to be a search for redemption becomes increasingly entangled with the very forces threatening to destroy him. The deeper he reaches toward grace, the more he is forced to confront the possibility that suffering itself has become the foundation of his identity.
Told in voice-driven, lyrical prose, the narrative unfolds through a recursive structure in which memory repeatedly reshapes the present, revealing the ways trauma, belief, and inheritance continue to exert their influence across generations. As Caster approaches a reckoning shaped as much by inheritance as by choice, the novella asks whether redemption can exist apart from sacrifice—and what remains of faith when its promises have failed.
Influences
There Will Be Blood by Paul Thomas Anderson
Holy Bible - KJV
F♯ A♯ ∞ by Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Alone at the Microphone by David Bazan
On Avery Island by Neutral Milk Hotel
Daisy by Brand New