A work of fiction based on the author’s own religious revelations.
The narrator, Alice, is a tabloid journalist in Los Angeles who becomes pregnant after a drunken one-night stand with a traveling sports doctor from Nashville. For the sake of the baby, they marry, and she must adjust to life in the South. Initially, she wishes her neighbors, a welcoming African-American family, would not talk so much about “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.” She informs the reader that she believes if there is a God, that God must have a sick sense of humor to have landed her in a world so alien to her experience and expectations. Then, over a meal, the family persuades Alice to come to their church (where the father is the pastor) for just one Sunday. One Sunday leads to another and another, although Alice remains ambivalent. She calls the next phase of her new life the “purgatory” phase. Finally, during a near-death experience, Alice makes a big decision regarding her faith.
The message of this Christian novel: Jesus loves everyone, and no one is beyond forgiveness.
