I’ve never been a particularly religious person. Growing up a Catholic Filipino-American, my exposure to church was my mother dragging me out of bed at the crack of why-am-I-awake on a Sunday, making me put on a skirt, and forcing me to sit on a pew for a whole hour listening to some guy in a dress tell me that it’s not too late, that I don’t have to go to hell, if I just say sorry, my bad, and stop sneaking money out of my mother’s purse. And blaming things on my sister. This routine got old for a while, even for my long-suffering mother, so when I was about seventeen, I woke up to an empty house on a Sunday morning. The car was not in the driveway, my parents and sisters weren’t home, and there was a plate on the kitchen counter with a solitary egg, two pieces of bacon, one dry toast, and a note that said, “Bam” (unrecognizable emoticon. Not happy, not sad. Straight line for a mouth). We never discussed why my mother stopped dragging me to church. Maybe she got tired of shushing me during mass while I made fun of the priest’s Filipino accent to the delight of my equally bored sisters. Maybe I made her feel like a bad person for threatening to kill me if I didn’t shut my mouth for one hour, just one hour, for God’s sake.

So I must not have been in church on the day that they talked about stigmata. I had not heard of it until I saw that awesome-awful movie starring Patricia Arquette. Is there something I’m not understanding about this idea of receiving the wounds of Christ (punctures through the palms and feet, bleeding forehead, a stab through the side, not to mention the wicked-weird visions and God talking to you) and suffering not just pain but people thinking you’re hurting yourself for attention, just because YOU REALLY LOVE the LORD AND THIS IS YOUR REWARD?!? And why would anyone inflict this thing on a 7-year-old Jewish girl whose parents are in the middle of a really bad, really ugly divorce?

KEEPING FAITH by Jody Picoult is about a thirty-something dollhouse maker named Mariah White. She is married to a sales rep named Colin, a college sweetheart whom she has always secretly thought she doesn’t deserve. She’s an awkward, studious, quiet Jewish girl and he’s the charming, handsome jock she tutors in French. They’re supposed to be in love, unable to keep their hands off each other, can’t even spend a night away from each other. Seven years ago, Colin cheated on Mariah, sending her into a tailspin which pushes her to slash her wrists open. Colin’s idea of helping her is having her committed to a mental institution. While heavily medicated with Prozac and some anti-psychotic drugs, Mariah discovers she is pregnant. She and Colin manage to patch things up (WTF!) and Mariah gives birth to a baby girl named Faith. Mariah is sure of her feelings for her husband―he’s the greatest man ever, she can never live without him, she loves him ohsomuch―but not quite sure about her love for her own daughter. Faith seems to be more like her gregarious, outgoing, and clever mother than herself; moreover, Mariah can’t help but look at Faith and wonder if there’s something wrong with her due to the drugs Mariah had taken during her pregnancy. Mariah would rather spend her energy loving her husband and making tiny dollhouses (with no dolls; you can’t play with all of the dolls all at once, so some of the time, some of them are just lying around lifeless and neglected). She would often watch mothers playing with their children and ask herself why she can’t love her daughter the same way.

Mariah’s tenuous hold on happiness slips away from her fingers altogether when she comes home one day with Faith (they were on their way to Faith’s ballet practice, but Faith had left her leotards at home) and finds Colin half-naked in their bedroom with his new girlfriend taking a shower in their bathroom. Mariah keeps it together long enough to get to her mother’s house, push Faith into into her mother’s welcoming embrace, and lock herself in the guest room for three days. Colin contacts her 4 days later and says he doesn’t love her anymore and wants a divorce. During this time, Faith decides to stop talking, retreating to a corner with her crayons and drawing pad, while Mariah is unable to shake off the funk. Mariah’s mother takes over the care-taking of Mariah and Faith, at times loving, at times berating Mariah to get over herself and take a look at her daughter. Though haltingly and awkwardly at first, she approaches her daughter and develops a friendship with her.

And then one day, Faith confesses that she’s been talking to God. Mariah is surprised by this because even though she is Jewish, religion has never been practiced in her home. There is no Bible there, they don’t go to church or temple, and they’ve never spoken about God. Mariah takes Faith to a child psychiatrist who tells her that imaginary friends are normal for children to have, but when Faith starts quoting scriptures and telling Mariah things she can’t possibly know about, Mariah begins to wonder if Faith might be talking to GOD, after all. Mariah seeks the help of rabbis and priests to no avail. When Faith’s bemused psychiatrist brings the case to a symposium for help―the anti-psychotic drugs do not work on Faith―gossip and speculation about what’s truly going on with Faith begin to spread like wildfire. Soon enough there are reporters, tabloid riffraff, and paparazzi hanging out on Mariah’s lawn. One of them in particular, a charming and handsome anti tele-evangelist named Ian Fletcher takes a special interest in Mariah rather than Faith. Ian’s job is to expose charlatans and supposed religious miracles for the fakes that they are; he is a renowned atheist. Ian is convinced that Mariah is a conwoman using her own daughter for her attention-whoring purposes, yet… aw, damn it, she’s real pretty and Ian can’t stop thinking about her. As the scandal and hype around Faith begin to grow―she brings her own grandmother back from the dead, cures a baby of AIDS, helps reconcile a feuding couple about to get a divorce―Mariah realizes there is no one she can trust and she is the only one who can save and protect Faith.

I picked up this book because of one thing only: the stigmata. I was intrigued by the notion of such a grotesque, yet supposedly beautiful thing being visited upon a seven-year-old child. Can you imagine bleeding from your hands and feet for no reason whatsoever and the doctors can’t find anything wrong with you? I was also curious to find out if the little girl was faking it to get the attention of her feuding parents or if Mariah was a psycho who was hurting her child to get her husband to talk to her again (what a twist!) But this is not that kind of book. Even though this story has plenty of intrigue, drama, and fantastical things, at the heart of it is really Mariah finding her own worth as a woman and discovering that she can take care of her own child without the help of anyone else. In the beginning of the story, Mariah is a scared little thing who would rather lock herself up in her room rather than face her own child who needs her. Faith is a special girl: she’s artistic, more outgoing than her mother, and seemingly more sophisticated than a girl her age. This book is supposed to be about these two females finding each other and bonding together against all odds.

And yet… not so much. I was expecting to find a lot more scenes of Mariah sitting down next to Faith and just talking to her, getting to know her better. After all, at the beginning of the story, Mariah is unable to relate to Faith. She says Faith is more like her mother, more likely to fight back, when Mariah would rather tuck tail and hide. While there are scenes with Mariah and Faith bonding together, there just wasn’t a moment where Mariah looks at Faith and thinks, “Okay, I get you now.” Mariah spends a bit of time worrying about Faith, what’s happening to Faith, and how the hell she’s supposed to deal with Faith, but a lot of it is just that: worrying. When she’s not being neurotic about Faith, she’s fantasizing about a way to get Colin back and soon enough, mooning about some other guy. I found it a little odd that Mariah would be so willing to jump into a relationship with someone so immediately when she just had her heart torn out by a man she thought was her one true love. It seemed to me that the author could have thrown a couple of scenes with Mariah REALLY TALKING to Faith and finding out what’s really going on with her. It was just kind of weird that she would be willing to get involved with a guy already when she still has a life to build up and a possibly emotionally disturbed daughter to raise. Where’s your head at, Mariah?

This is the first Jodi Picoult book I’ve read and I finished it in one sitting. It took me about six hours to read the whole thing and I was utterly absorbed. There were times when I was frustrated with Mariah for being so distracted with everything else instead of actually sitting down to talk to her kid, but for the most part, I really enjoyed this book. Even though the topic is Christian mythology, the religious aspect of it doesn’t beat you over the head. The Christians aren’t right, the Jews aren’t wrong, no one is trying to convince anyone of anything, you don’t have to tithe 10% of your salary to your church after reading this book if you don’t want to. Maybe God is really talking to little Faith or maybe it’s just her imagination, you decide. There is a surrealistic, magic feel to the story, but it is woven well enough with the not-so-magic aspects of it that it really works. The pacing is good, the writing itself is lush and beautiful, and there’s even some awesome Kramer vs Kramer courtroom drama at the end. It’s a fun way to spend a few hours. Pick it up if you feel like heading down to the beach, stripping down to your bikini, and reading under the sun.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Books, Grade: B, Verdict: Aiiiiight..., Women's Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.