crisis of faith

Southernmost by Silas House
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Review: In an editorial in today's Washington Post, E.J. Dionne writes that "[m]any young people [have come] to regard religion as 'judgmental, homophobic, hypocritical and too political.'"  Asher Sharp couldn't agree more.  He's a Holy Roller pastor who's having a crisis of faith.  He's been harboring some long-standing guilt about how he and his mother treated his brother when he came out as gay, and when he's forced to turn away a gay couple seeking shelter in a flood, his crisis comes to a head.  In trying to accept the two men into his church, he loses his pulpit, and in trying to bring his more liberal thinking into his own home, he loses his wife and son.

Faced with a protracted custody battle, Asher kidnaps his son, Justin, and spirits him away to Key West to find Asher's long-estranged brother, Luke.  What follows is... not much.  Justin and Asher find a home at a small resort hotel on the island, and Asher works as a general handyman.  But neither of them do much, except think deep thoughts about God, and faith, and the church, and judgment, and holiness.  This is a very introspective, slow-moving, but beautifully written book.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

too much

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult
Rating: 3.5 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Summary/Review: Jodi Picoult has once again tackled a moral dilemma. Up for debate this time is whether the mother of a girl in need of a heart transplant should accept the heart of the man who will be executed for the murder of her husband and older daughter. And if Picoult had stuck to one dilemma, this might have been a better book. Instead, the book is complicated by Green Mile-like questions of whether the condemned man had the power to perform miracles and a Dead Man Walking-like last-hour relationship between the death row inmate and a priest.

In typical Picoult fashion, there is no clear right and wrong in this story. Shay Bourne, the convicted man, does not really contest his conviction, or his sentence. He simply insists that he must be allowed to donate his heart afterward, despite the fact that being executed by lethal injection would make this impossible. Enter an ACLU lawyer, with issues of her own, who's determined to get Bourne executed in a way that would allow for his heart to be taken, and, by so doing, turn a spotlight on the inhumanity of the death penalty.

Her argument is that Bourne's religion requires that he be allowed to donate his heart in order for him to find salvation. Here is where the issue of his "miracles" come in. When he supposedly makes wine flow from the taps in the prison, divides a single piece of gum among 7 men, and heals the prisoner in the next cell who is dying of AIDS, word leaks out and people flock to the prison gates, proclaiming the Second Coming. Naturally, there are an equal number on the other side who think he's a fraud or even the devil. Whatever the truth of the matter is, and we're left wondering, Maggie Bloom, the ACLU lawyer, uses these "miracles" and some of Bourne's own words to try to convince the court that he belongs to a religion, even if he's the only member of it, that requires organ donation as necessary to salvation. And here I have to give Picoult credit: what other popular author manages to work the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA) into a novel?!

Although well written as all of Picoult's books are, the multiple threads and questions keep this one from being as good as it ought to have been. Hopefully, in her next book she will go back to presenting us with a with just one moral dilemma, as she has done so well so many times before.

finally done

The Widows of Eden by George Shaffner

Rating: 2 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Review: To get a real feel for what I thought of this book, please read my reviews of the two books that came before it, In the Land of Second Chances and One Part Angel. With this book, the three form what I hope will be only a trilogy telling the story of what happens when Vernon Moore pays a visit to the hopeless folk of Ebb, Nebraska.

Having established what I thought of those, it should come as no surprise that I was not impressed, to say the least, by this third installment. Here we have more of the same, although at least we are given the beginnings of an explanation of where the mysterious Mr. Moore comes from. I was not thrown a bit by the vaguely supernatural nature of the theory that the people of Ebb come up with, it just seemed forced and laid on top of the story very heavily.

This book follows the pattern set by its predecessors. There is a crisis in Ebb and Vernon Moore rolls into town to save the day. Except, rather than just addressing the problem, he has to do it in the roundabout way of convincing one of the main players to have faith. His arguments this time are a combination of the arguments he made in the first two books.

There is really nothing new here. The characters, none too interesting to begin with, have become parodies of themselves. I can only echo what other reviewers have said: if you liked the first two, you'll probably like this one. If you didn't, or haven't read the first two, don't bother with this one.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.

philosophy lite

In the Land of Second Chances by George Shaffner
Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)
Genre: fiction
Summary/Review: I just did not know what to make of this book. The voices of the characters are very well-written, I could hear the Midwestern small-town twang in so much of the dialogue and narration. And if the book had been a story of small-town life, I probably would have loved it. But this is the story of how Vernon Moore comes to this small town and allegedly changes the lives of so many of its residents. Moore's origins are a mystery, as is what he's actually doing in the town. But while he's there, he manages to convince several residents to have hope in the existence of God and an afterlife, all through using rational thought and mathematical probability. Knowing that Shaffner has also written a non-fiction book on the same subject made me feel as though I'd been tricked into reading a lecture. Nonetheless, the book is well-written and, for the most part, a pleasant way to read about the author's philosophical ideas. Still, I would have liked to see more about the characters, not to say some character development that could be explained by something in addition to the revelations from the entire town's new best friend, Vernon Moore.

not good till the end

Winter Haven by Athol Dickson

Rating: 3 stars (out of 5)

Genre: fiction

Challenge: A-Z (title)

Summary/Review: I was really not enjoying this book until I got to the very end, which almost made up for the turgidness of the prose. The last chapter saved the book from getting an even lower rating.

This is a story of Vera, a young woman (much younger than she acts) who sets off to pick up the body of her brother who has washed up on the shore of a small Maine island. How we got there, and why he doesn't appear to have aged in 13 years, are the "mystery" of the book. The answer, when it is finally revealed, is fairly straightforward, and not unsatisfying.

In the course of finding that out, though, Vera must deal with her own guilt over not stopping her brother from running away, and her belief that her "visions" of what happened to her brother are actually punishments from God. She must also deal with unkind islanders, a "ghost", and a too-handsome man (with a wandering eye) who might be friend or might be foe.

One might suppose that all of those factors would combine to make a compelling story. Alas, that is not the case. Dickson gets too bogged down in his first-person narration to let the story run naturally. We are teased with hints and glimpses of what's really going on, but Vera's overdrawn naivete prevents us from finding anything in the story that will allow us to be drawn in.

FTC Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for this review.