Deeply felt, though the author’s Christian message is sometimes heavy-handed.
Quirky, sympathetic characters propel this finely hewn first novel by Tennessee poet and journalist Arnoult.
The author brings together two very different Southern families when white, 50-year-old Gracie Hollaman hears voices and believes Jesus is directing her to leave her middle-class North Carolina home and make her way to Rockrun, Va., the home of her African-American nanny from childhood, Tootsie Mae. Toot and her widowed daughter-in-law Mattie find Gracie unconscious on the grave of Toot’s son Arty. Though she doesn’t initially recognize her former charge, Toot takes her discovery as a sign from heaven and gives the strange woman the biblical name Rachel. Meanwhile, Gracie’s husband Ed, until now scarcely able to cope without his wife to make him deviled eggs, learns to cook rather spectacularly over her many months’ absence by watching Chef Bernard on TV. Furious, blameful daughter Ginger opens her own Dixie Donut business and can’t fathom why her mother would desert them. In Rockrun, Gracie develops her talent at painting religious scenes on impermanent materials such as car parts. But when Toot finally identifies Gracie from a birthmark, she has to be officially hospitalized and the relatives informed of her whereabouts. We learn from Toot’s conversation with the local sheriff that when Gracie was eight, her father committed suicide and her mentally ill mother was sent to a sanitarium. Arnoult knows that her characters take deadly seriously their Christian visions, inner voices, biblical passages and hometown reverend. Her colloquial narrative constantly shifts points of view and skates a fine line between irony and endorsement—or is it proselytizing? Her characters demonstrate tremendous grit, especially passionate, hard-edged Toot and once-pitiable Ed, whose growing self-knowledge allows him to minister to the loveless spinster saleswoman of his dreams, Parva Wilson. Ultimately, everyone rushes toward a triumphant spiritual transformation.
Deeply felt, though the author’s Christian message is sometimes heavy-handed.Pub Date: June 5, 2006
ISBN: 0-7432-8447-X
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Free Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2006
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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