Review of The Rapture of Canaan (Sheri Reynolds, Berkley Books, 1995)
By
Doc Scorpion
Novels about religion tend to be a sticky subject. Many novels sound too patronizing toward anything resembling belief in a higher power, as if the author has become too smart for God (or whatever you believe in). Some sound far too gullible, more like an advertisement for a particular brand of dogma than a work of art.
Much harder to pull off is the novel that lies somewhere in the middle, one that accepts the mystery and splendor of religion without blindly, uncritically kowtowing to any organized form. One author who manages to pull off this difficult high-wire act is Sheri Reynolds in her beautiful book The Rapture of Canaan.
TroC is the story of Ninah, a teenage member of a separatist religious community that incorporates elements of fire-and-brimstone southern Baptist dogma and Pentecostal modes of dress and appearance. The center of the community is The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almighty Baptizing Wind, which is run by Ninah’s grandfather, Herman. Imagine what would happen if Puritan minister Jonathan Edwards and Hee Haw’s Grandpa Jones had a baby and you’ve got Herman.
Ninah herself is a young lady on the verge of her sexual awakening. As if puberty does not present enough problems already, Ninah’s choices of experimental partners is limited to the members of the Fire and Brimstone community, most of whom she’s related to, even if distantly. Another problem is, of course, that sex is equated with sin, and any impure thought is grounds for punishment. Grandpa Herman punishes the members of Fire and Brimstone when they sin publicly, and, because of his constant warnings of what will happen if they are left behind after the Rapture, they also tend to punish themselves privately. To paraphrase Marcellus Wallace, these people get medieval on their own asses; they might walk with rocks in their shoes (“to remind me of Jesus’ pain”), sleep on nettles, or even spend the night in a freshly dug grave. Not exactly Whoville, this place.
Ninah’s problems grow—literally—when she “sins” with her prayer partner, James, and finds herself pregnant. She also finds herself constantly questioning the harsh dogma she’s always been taught, as she cannot believe that her unborn child, a thing of beauty, is the result of a sinful union. And as the literal seed in her belly becomes a metaphorical seed of disbelief, she soon questions everything she thinks she knows about life, love, God, and her upbringing.
A lovely book full of heartbreaking emotion, The Rapture of Canaan manages to make Ninah and her fellow “Fire and Brimstoners” at once familiar and foreign to us. I hate to use the word “lyrical”—a word that is as overused in book reviews as “extremely” is in freshman comp papers—but the music of Reynolds’ language is contagious and powerful. As Ninah discovers the mystery of her body and somehow equates the wonderful new feelings not with sin but with Jesus himself, I tend to envy her her innocence and her optimism, and I feel as elated as she does when she holds her baby for the first time.
All of that may sound like Reynolds and her characters spend most of the book slamming religion, but what the book critiques most harshly is the desire to impose one’s will on others. Grandpa Herman is painted as a basically good but very, very flawed man, one who condemns vanity in others but who feels that he is the only one who can drag his congregation kicking and screaming through the gates of Heaven. While never letting us forget that his intentions are good, Reynolds has created a tragic hero in Herman, a man whose hubris is as responsible as anything else for what eventually happens to Fire and Brimstone. The irony is that what happens really isn’t a bad thing.
Funny and devastating, emotive and logical, reverent of God but suspicious of our ability to know Him and His will, The Rapture of Canaan is one of the best books of the latter 90s. Go check it out; it’s good for you, and it tastes a lot better than that nasty cough syrup you’re taking.