Book Review: The Blessings by Elisa Juska

Let me just say, first of all, that I am a big fan of Elise Juska, and that I admire her talent immensely. Getting Over Jack Wagner is one of the funniest novels written by a woman I've ever read, and her short story “The Way I Saw the World Then” is one I have read aloud in my writing classes many times as an example of beautifully written, heart-wrenching  literary fiction. Therefore, when I discovered her new novel, The Blessings, I was so excited I found myself frantically tapping the good old “Buy with one click” button before I’d even read the sample (in truth, before I’d even read the summary!)—something I have never, not once, done before with any other author’s work. So as you can imagine, it was tough for me to give this book a mere two-star rating.

The Blessings, which is the story of a large Catholic family experiencing one problem right after the other, in my humble opinion, reads more like a series of writing exercises than a novel. For example, Chapter One is told from the point of view of college-bound daughter Abby. We spend a few pages in her head, getting to know her and her opinion of her family members, but then the chapter ends and we move on to another character’s head, and the next time we see Abby again, we are viewing her through another character’s eyes; she is several years older, and we have no access whatsoever to her inner self. And so the book goes, chapter to chapter, character to character, crisis to crisis. As a reader who likes to become immersed in the hearts and minds of characters, this structure alone is something I found very unrewarding. We would visit a character for a few pages, hear his or her tale of woe, and then move on.

The other thing that really bothers me about this book is that the characters are all so completely self-absorbed and miserable. Don’t get me wrong; I love drama and am all for torturing fictional characters with all manner of illness and bad luck. But there is nothing fun about these characters or their misery. The book is depressing, full of maudlin, discontent characters, who just do not seem to love one another in any genuine way. I know one reviewer called this a “bighearted novel,” but where is that heart exactly? In the couple that can’t cope with their daughter’s bulimia and therefore divorce; or in the sister-in-law who, after years of trying to get pregnant and the birth of one child, hints to her husband that she wants to have an abortion after accidentally becoming pregnant with a second; in the deadbeat son who attacks an innocent old man in the Wendy’s parking lot so that he and his friends can rip off his car stereo; in the brother who travels to Spain with his girlfriend only to mope and sit silently through most of the trip for reasons I still have yet to fathom; in the doctor husband with two beautiful children and two homes to boot (one of them beachfront!) who considers having an affair with a woman he works with just because she can bake cupcakes and his wife is a lousy cook . . . ? I’m sorry, but I just don’t get it. What this family needs is a priest or therapist to come along and tell them all that happiness is often a choice, to remind them that true love is often a matter of will, and that life is a gift. Ugh. I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you the rest.

The Good Stuff:

Elise Juska can write—no doubt about it. Her descriptions are amazing and the dialogue is painfully real.

The Not So Good Stuff:

See my rantings above.

Overall Score: Even though I am obviously not a fan of The Blessings, I cannot bring myself to assign a score to a writer whose talent I admire as much as Juska’s.

Bottom Line: I did not like this novel and would not recommend it to a friend.

Book Review: Every Bush is Burning by Brandon Clements

Though I am a Christian myself, I don’t normally read Christian fiction, but I made an exception for the oddly titled indie novel Every Bush is Burning by Brandon Clements mainly because I had read on Goodreads that the author himself had described his book as “edgy,” which, in case you weren’t aware, seems to be the CBA’s code word for “real.” In other words an “edgy” Christian novel is not limited to a cast of saintly Christian characters doing saintly Christian things.

The story is told by Jack Bennett, a thirty-something journalist in the midst of an early midlife crisis, whose horrendous childhood experiences have caused him to become extremely bitter and suspicious of all things religious. In Jack’s opinion, all Christians are, at best, meddlesome hypocrites and, at worst, child molesters, a view that is strengthened when he discovers a homeless man named Yeshua (of all things) vainly trying to gain entrance into a local church one Sunday morning. In a fit of compassion Jack offers him a ride to the local coffee shop, and during the course of their conversation, he is stunned by a request Yeshua makes of him:

“Repent of cheating on your wife and beg for her forgiveness. She is the best thing you have going for you and trust me, you don’t need to screw it up any more than you already have.”

And so, you can imagine where this is going, Yeshua eventually tells Jack that he is, in fact, Jesus, sent to earth by God in order to help him through this turbulent time in his life.

Okay, so, as I said early on in this review, I don’t normally read Christian books, let alone books with fictional characters claiming to be Christ, but the fact that I did read this book at a rapid pace and with great interest in where the author was going with the story is a testament to his ability to hook the reader and then soundly reel her in.

The Good Stuff:

• The characters are sympathetic, interesting, and above all, as real as all get out.
• The plot is, for the most part, tightly woven leading to a climax that is worth the wait, but the end of the book is what strikes me as particularly true and poignant. I won’t give it away here, but just know, the resolution of this book, just like the rest of it, does not necessarily fit with the standard conventions of Christian fiction.
• The descriptions are simple but go a long way in revealing character.
• The character’s voice is strong and compelling.
• The dialogue, for the most part, is real, relevant, and revealing.

The Not-So-Good Stuff:

The construction of the book is not flawless. There are tense shifts in places that strike the writing teacher in me as unintentional, and Yeshua’s rather long-winded monologues get a bit too preachy at times.

Overall Score:  90%, A-. Every Bush is Burning is a solid, well-constructed tale that will appeal to the believer (particularly the backslidden or disillusioned) as well as the skeptical non-believer.

Bonus Points: I believe Brandon Clements deserves bonus points for the sheer brass it took to write this story that breaks so many of the tidy rules of Christian fiction.

Bottom Line: I would recommend this book to friends, students, people on the street, and I’m looking forward to reading more from this talented young author.

I've Got a Blog in my Throat!: "Realistic" Christian Fiction

So, let me get this out of the way right off the bat, the first time I heard the word “blog” back in the early part of this century (this century—can that be right? Makes me sound like I’m 10,000 years old!), I immediately found myself thinking of that wad of goo one sometimes finds lodged in the back of one’s throat very early in the morning or late at night or during allergy season.

Blog.

 I didn't know what it was at the time, but it sounded like something a person would definitely want to rid himself of. Then I found out what a blog really was and thought, “Oh . . .” and then, “Well I was sort of right!” Because aren't blogs really just a way for people to hack something up or get something off their chests? Well, I hope so, because this is my blog, and watch out because I am about to start hawking and hacking like nobody’s business about something that has been lodged quiet miserably in my throat for years now--the oxymoron that is “realistic” Christian fiction.

Okay, so allow me to digress a bit. As a veteran teacher, I've often had students tell me that they like me because I am “real,” by which I think they mean that I am, for the most part, not afraid to admit when I have made a mistake or to be goofy in front of them or to call them on their own goofiness when it becomes inappropriate by telling them to simply “put a sock in it” or some such pithy euphemism for “shut your trap.” In other words, I think some* of my students like me because I allow them to see the real me, flaws and all, (and while the irony of being called “real” never ceases to surprise me when I stop to consider the fact that I am also a fiction writer, which means I spend many hours of my day devoted to pretending to be other people) being real or flawed can actually be a good thing. It makes people feel comfortable around you; it allows them to see that you are not one bit better than they are. Therefore, they are able to just relax, drop their guard, and be real themselves.

Which leads me to a problem I've discovered when it comes to the characters often found in Christian novels: Simply put, the characters and the world they inhabit just don’t seem real.

Okay, so I’m a writer and a teacher of writing and therefore, of course, I’m a reader as well. And so I know from merely browsing the Christian Fiction section at Barnes and Noble that Christian fiction normally contains a lot of characters who wear bonnets and own buggies, and that is fine. There is obviously a large market for bonnet books and readers all across the world who enjoy reading about the exploits of the bonneted, but for me, the bonnets just didn't quiet satisfy my craving for true literary conflict and drama, and so, I kept looking and eventually I found a few Christian books that were marketed as being “realistic.” But I have to say that the realism in these books looked nothing like the real world that I have known for 43+ years now. Yes, the characters may have failed in some regard—perhaps with an unplanned pregnancy or some vice such as drugs or drink, but there was still something missing.  And so I asked myself, “Am I just being snobby? Am I wrong to want my fiction to contain some texture, some grit? Is it . . . is it just me?”  And so, timidly at first, I began to question my Christian reader friends about their opinions on the reality of Christian fiction, and what I discovered was that well . . . it wasn't just me.

Anyone who has been a Christian or even just been around Christians for two seconds knows that Christians are supremely real in that we are flawed to the gills. Just like everyone else, Christians mess up! Sometimes profoundly! And it seems to me that those mess ups could be the basis for some great literary conflicts. I mean, think about it. For Christians, the stakes are even higher than they are for the lost. If we mess up, we run the risk of blowing our testimony and dragging others down with us, and, and we can’t forget about the guilt Christians who mess up must learn to deal with! And when you think about all of this in terms of “story,” Christians should be able to write stories that are rife with dramatic tension all the way around based solely on the guilt thing alone. So what’s the problem? Why aren't more Christian writers writing about characters that are desperately flawed? Well I found out—at least in part—when I decided to dip my toes into the chilly waters of traditional Christian publishing.

I’ll spare you the long story, but here is the short of it. The book I’d written contained the following:

1. A point of view character who did not know Christ.
2. A Christian who might possibly have committed suicide.
3. A Christian who engaged in premarital sex.
4. A Christian who drank to the point of drunkenness.
5. A married couple that was unequally yoked. (For those of you who do not speak Christian-ese, that means that one partner was a born again Christian and one was not.)
6. A few swear words.

 I wrote this book for a lot of reasons. One because, in spite of their failings, I liked the characters and their story and therefore, I just had to tell it. But I also felt that the book could speak to both the lost (hopefully, leading them in the end toward Christ) as well as the Christian young person who is struggling with his faith. In other words, I felt led by God to write this book because I thought it could make a difference. I’d written a lot of other stories just because I love to write, but this one . . . well, I felt that perhaps it could matter to someone—a young person maybe like the ones I teach each day, but the traditional publishers said “No.” They all told me I could write (which was reassuring to hear) but that the story was too “edgy.” By which I believe they meant “worldly.” But gracious, isn't this world we live in well . . . worldly? And isn’t the job of the fiction writer to “make it real?” Why else would we spend all those hours pretending?!

Well . . . okay. I’ve blustered enough. I’ve hawked up my blog for the moment. But if you, like me, are frustrated with the reality or lack thereof in Christian fiction, come back, visit, and feel free to hawk up a comment or two below if you like.

*I said some of my students like me. Therefore, those of you who may happen to read this who could not dislike me more, who spend your days fantasizing about my death, please note my use of “some.”