CORINNE

Two fundamentalist Christians endure ostracism in the name of true love.

This is a refreshingly unconventional love story between people who are not conventionally attractive. Corinne Callahan wears “plus-sizes” and “always looked bad.” Enoch Miller is described as “massive,” “a slab,” built like a door crammed into an ill-fitting suit. The horizons of these two teens are circumscribed by their evangelical church in Kansas, where women are expected to be modest but where not being pretty is more offensive than immodesty. Although women outnumber men, the men have the dominant roles as deacons and elders. Unmarried young men and women must be chaperoned at all times. The congregation, it seems, has already chosen a fiancee for Enoch, Shannon Frank, whose beauty Corinne envies. In 1992, Enoch and Corinne, both 18, transgress, and he confesses. Being “cast out” of the church enables Corinne to go to college, get out of Kansas, and achieve ad-biz stardom in Boston. Enoch, who repented, did not attend college (which the sect discourages), instead becoming an electrician. The narrative jumps ahead 13 years as her mother's health challenges draw Corinne back home to the provisional embrace of her family. After Shannon, coming out as a lesbian, divorces Enoch, his now precarious position in the church gets even worse when word of his and Corinne’s renewed relationship leaks. Unlike Corinne, entrenched in her apostasy, doggedly devout Enoch continues to attend services even while being shunned. Occasionally one wonders why, in a mobile society, these capable young adults, now 32, choose a restrictive community reminiscent of 17th-century Salem, albeit with a steady diet of high-fructose corn syrup. In one of many pungent observations, Corinne muses, “I don’t just have a scarlet letter; I have, like, a whole scarlet letterman’s jacket.” After a propulsive start, the story suffers from a lack of conflict, unrelieved by the couple’s minutely described premarital sex life, which grows a bit tedious with repetition.

An arch but nonconfrontational look at an enclave of American Christianity.