SEND ME DOWN A MIRACLE

An apparent miracle stands tiny Casper, Alabama, on its ear in this busy, hilarious, tragic story from the author of If I Should Die Before I Wake (1994). Charity Pittman's father is a preacher, and she fully intends to follow in his footsteps until she meets Adrienne Dabney. This New York City artist has moved into a boarded-up house for a month of meditation; at the end of the month, Adrienne emerges with stunning news: three times Jesus Christ sat in a chair and brought her visions. Despite Reverend Pittman's purple-faced anger, awestruck townsfolk quickly line up to see the chair and offer prayers; there's even talk of a Second Coming. Nolan's country characters are not—quite—caricatures, and one's habit of blasting away at the ground with a shotgun, or another's prayer-bolstered resolve to lose 25 pounds, often masks profound hurts or needs. In the wake of a church service that is both intense and—because Charity accidently wears her musical Christmas socks— sidesplitting, the story takes a horrifying turn. Readers will be dizzied by the multiple subplots and roller-coaster highs and lows in this portrait of a small town that is anything but quiet. (Fiction. 11-15)