Facile redemption aplenty.
A rote addition to the glut of inspirational allegories promising quick fixes for ontological angst through prayer.
The authors, co-founders of Sacred Center New York (“one of the fastest-growing spiritual churches in America,” according to the book’s publicity material), bring us Joseph Hutchinson, a farmer circa 1883 who has always wanted to be a carpenter. Joseph has inherited the family farm and the family curse—all of his male ancestors going back generations have died in their 20s. Joseph expects to suffer the same fate, but finds respite in the farmhouse attic, which exudes a comforting aura. When wife Miriam dies after caring for the daughter of his neighbor (and former crush) Grace, Joseph is left with two small children, a debt-ridden farm and crushing guilt—just before Miriam’s death, he had unwisely dissed a vision of the Angel of Death, who only wanted to give him a mysterious chest. Joseph uncovers a mildewed chest in the attic, containing a notebook left by Joseph’s ancestor Malachi in 1780, which transcribed Grandma Mary’s three secrets of prayer—unfair to divulge here, but suffice it to say that when it comes to prayer, it’s all about you. Joseph replicates the chest according to his vision, and Grace provides the gold lock. The characters write prayers on slips of paper and deposit them in a slot at the top of the chest, which cannot thereafter be opened—kind of like an IRA, only forever. Their prayers are answered: The mean bank president, Charlie, who threatens Joseph with foreclosure, gives him lucrative carpentry contracts. When Charlie’s carriage accidentally runs down an orphaned immigrant Jewish girl, Sarah, Charlie adopts her. Sarah rallies everyone to host a Christmas party, where the town children will receive toys designed by Grace and carved by Joseph. There’s artistic fulfillment and business opportunities for all (except doomed Sarah) and even a fourth secret—whose revelation will have to await the inevitable sequel(s).
Facile redemption aplenty.Pub Date: Oct. 30, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-385-52023-2
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2007
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.
Christian-fiction writer Martin (The Dead Don’t Dance, not reviewed) chronicles the personal tragedy of a Georgia heart surgeon.
Five years ago in Atlanta, Reese could not save his beloved wife Emma from heart failure, even though the Harvard-trained surgeon became a physician so that he could find a way to fix his childhood sweetheart’s congenitally faulty ticker. He renounced practicing medicine after her death and now lives in quiet anonymity as a boat mechanic on Lake Burton. Across the lake is Emma’s brother Charlie, who was rendered blind on the same desperate night that Reese fought to revive his wife on their kitchen floor. When Reese helps save the life of a seven-year-old local girl named Annie, who turns out to have irreparable heart damage, he is compassionately drawn into her case. He also grows close to Annie’s attractive Aunt Cindy and gradually comes to recognize that the family needs his expertise as a transplant surgeon. Martin displays some impressive knowledge about medical practice and the workings of the heart, but his Christian message is not exactly subtle. “If anything in this universe reflects the fingerprint of God, it is the human heart,” Reese notes of his medical studies. Emma’s letters (kept in a bank vault) quote Bible verse; Charlie elucidates stories of Jesus’ miracles for young Annie; even the napkins at the local bar, The Well, carry passages from the Gospel of John for the benefit of the biker clientele. Moreover, Martin relentlessly hammers home his sentimentality with nature-specific metaphors involving mating cardinals and crying crickets. (Annie sells crickets as well as lemonade to raise money for her heart surgery.) Reese’s habitual muttering of worldly slogans from Milton and Shakespeare (“I am ashes where once I was fire”) doesn’t much cut the cloying piety, and an over-the-top surgical save leaves the reader feeling positively bruised.
Deep schmaltz in the Bible Belt.Pub Date: April 4, 2006
ISBN: 1-5955-4054-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: WestBow/Thomas Nelson
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2006
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
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