Armageddon Summer

Armageddon Summer is a 1998 speculative fiction novel for young adults by Jane Yolen, co-written by Bruce Yoville. Mostly taking place just before the year 2000, it follows two teenagers, Jed and Marina, whose parents join a millennialist cult that believes the world will end on July 27, 2000. Jed and Marina meet each other after joining the cult’s leader, Reverend Beelson, atop a mountain in Massachusetts, the cult’s designated safe haven from Armageddon. While their raving parents busy themselves in preparation to meet God, which they intend to orchestrate via a mass murder-suicide, the two protagonists fall in love. The story is based on real-life cult tragedies in the United States, which are often conveyed by the skeptical children of cult members after they manage to escape.

The novel’s point of view alternates between Jed and Marina. It begins as Marina is preparing for her fourteenth birthday, a day she fears, since it coincides with the date Reverend Beelson alleges is the end of the world. Beelson announces that he will keep his congregation safe from the fire and brimstone by shepherding them to Mount Weeupcut. Initially, Marina subscribes to the Reverend’s dogma but is deeply skeptical about such an absolute claim about the end of the world. Likewise, Jed has been subjected to brainwashing but has resisted it. He follows his father to the mountain to watch over him.

The Reverend employs his followers to construct an electric fence around the mountain, positioning heavily armed guards, whom he calls his “angels,” at the gate. When his son shows up, he declares that all of God’s chosen are on the mountain, and seals the fence. He bans all devices that can communicate with the outside world. Soon after, Marina and Jed cross paths and develop feelings for one another. At first, Marina enjoys the mountain, because it has distracted her mother from preventing her relationship with Jed. Meanwhile, Jed’s father grows more obsessed with Reverend Beelson. The two teenagers band together as they watch their parents descend into extreme delusional states. They wait for July 27 to roll around, believing that the day will reveal the fictitiousness of the Reverend’s story and discredit him enough to wake up their families.



Just before Armageddon, a group outside the gates called the Last Minute Christers, or LMCs, decide to enact God’s judgment on their own. They open fire on the convoy of police stationed at the perimeter. Eventually, they make it through the main gate, fighting the Reverend’s angels. The campsite’s main building burns down, spreading fire through the campsite. Ironically, the attack confirms the Reverend’s words in his followers’ eyes, since he had declared that fire would descend from heaven.

Marina smuggles the hostage children out of the campsite and into a cave at the mountain’s summit. Jed retrieves his laptop, which he had snuck past the guards, and calls the outside world for help. A man named Hank reveals that he has been working undercover for the FBI, and helps Jed dial out. Jed’s father murders a woman and is then shot to death. Marina’s mother attacks Jed, but he strikes her with his laptop, and she passes out. The brawl continues on Mount Weeupcut for several hours before the police finally gain control.

In the aftermath of the incident on the mountain, a flood of media descends on Jed and Marina. The death toll reaches twenty, including Reverend Beelson, and another forty are wounded. All 144 of the cult members have lasting trauma. Jed moves to Colorado with his mother, who remains somewhat delusional; they live in a small house atop yet another mountain. Marina’s mother obtains some common sense; her father leaves her for another woman. Jed and Marina suggest that the other cult members have probably returned to their ordinary rural lives. They neither condemn nor exonerate them, aware that the Reverend was a compelling, though psychotic, leader. Jed and Marina continue to communicate and make plans to meet again.