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Faith, Lies, And Motherhood
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19954 |
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BOOK WORLD
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8 / 1992 |
2,833 Words |
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Cathryn Hankla
Cathryn Hankla is the author of a collection of short
fiction, learning the Mother Tongue; a novel, A Blue Moon in
Poorwater; and two collections of poetry, the latest of
which, Afterimages, was published recently by Louisiana State
University Press. She teaches at Hollins College in Roanoke,
Virginia. |
THE PATRON SAINT OF LIARS
Ann Patchett
Boston, Mass: Houghton Mifflin/Todd, 1992
336 pp., $21.00
Ann Patchett's skillful first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars, spans close to a century, in four points of view, but focuses intently upon the mysteries of motherhood and the power of habit, daily ritual, to heal human isolation. By allusion and illustration, Patchett easily moves her readers into a broad religious context in which the Catholic faith and secular signs interact to produce as many psychological questions as conclusions--and at least one possible saint in addition to Rose, the patron saint of liars.
Patchett's narration begins with a brief third-person section summarizing the history of the Clatterbuck family in Habit, Kentucky. George Clatterbuck, out hunting for the family dinner in 1906, discovers a "foul and sulfurous" stream that he takes to be a "bad sign." Soon afterward hard times plague the farm animals with several kinds of disease, and it seems that the spring has poisoned the property--until Clatterbuck's colicky horses and sick cows wander into the stream, drink the stinking water, and are healed. When George's daughter June contracts a wasting illness that doctors cannot name, he trusts the spring water he pours down her throat from a mason jar in the middle of the night. "The next morning June is fine, perfect, better than new."
Over the years word of the miraculous healing spring spreads. Lewis Nelson, whose wife, Louisa, was healed by the spring water, builds a resort hotel to capitalize on its powers, while the Clatterbucks retain title to the land. The crash of 1929 and a drought, which dries up the spring, combine to close the Hotel Louisa. Nelson deeds the hotel to the Catholic Church and June Clatterbuck, "a kind of saint in town, the first one saved by the spring" who continues to live on her family's property. The day a station wagon of nuns pulls up to the fraying hotel with "five big-bellied girls" to establish St. Elizabeth's home for unwed mothers, June and her mother are watching from across the field. St. Elizabeth's will eventually attract Rose, the first of Patchett's three main narrators, to Habit.
The habit of driving
Only when Rose is driving the Dodge does she find relief from "a tightness" that weighs upon her chest, wakes her in the night,
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