Book Review: Moving among the faithful: "Pew" and "Transcendent Kingdom"

For many, the church is a place of community and comfort during trying times. It can encourage personal growth, challenge, and reflection. Two novels I recently had the joy of reading approach the church in very different ways, but they both turn a mirror back toward those who profess to be of faith and ask some very profound questions.

The first is a fairly short novella, entitled “Pew” by Catherine Lacey. This is her third novel, and the title is also the name bestowed on the central character, a person of indeterminate gender and race who shows up one day in a small church somewhere in the American South. Pew also chooses not to speak. When Pew is discovered on Sunday morning, the congregation struggles on how to deal with this new arrival to town. The church is hosting an event called the “Forgiveness Festival” coming up at the end of the week, and one by one members interact with Pew, often filling the silence with their own confessions about all sorts of happenings in the town. Lacey packs plenty of suspicion and foreboding menace into this quick read, and by the end the reader is reminded just how many judgments we all make about people based solely on appearance or actions.

The second, “Transcendent Kingdom” by Yaa Gyasi, is a compelling look at one family through the eyes of the daughter, Gifty. Also set in the South, the tale follows a family after their arrival from Ghana as they acclimate to American life in a small southern town. Gifty’s older brother, Nana, becomes addicted to OxyContin after a high school sports injury, and his tragic death from an overdose leads her towards studying for a PhD in Neuroscience focusing on addiction. Even though her father long ago returned to Ghana, she still has her mother to care for as both of them wrestle with grief and depression. Gyasi’s first novel, Homegoing, was a bestseller and a wide ranging, epic story moving across generations and continents. This book, however, is a much more tightly focused look at how Gifty struggles with her faith and her ambition to become a better person in the eyes of her mother and the church.

Whether you consider yourself a religious person, a casual church goer, or one with no strong beliefs at all, the powerful humanity of both of these books still has tremendous impact and is especially relatable for those who find themselves in new and difficult situations.

– Former Odessa resident Tim Coley, now an administrator with the Washington State Patrol in Olympia, writes this occasional column for The Record.