Secrets of Eden: A Novel
by Chris Bohjalian
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Book Summary Information
Author: Chris BohjalianEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2010-02-02
ISBN: 0307394972
Number of pages: 384
Publisher: Crown
Book Reviews of Secrets of Eden: A Novel
Book Review: A Trick of the Light...
Summary: 3 Stars
Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
As I look over at my bookshelf, I've read more of Chris Bohjalian's books than I had thought. 4 books...oh, and I listened to one audio book. And obviously, I keep picking them up, as I did with "Secrets of Eden"...so I am drawn to his work...but as with "Secrets of Eden", I seem to keep finishing each one with a sense of feeling cheated.
The last couple have used various literary devices to hide important truths from the reader. I'm fine with that, although I do enjoy some subtlety with my trickery. In this book, the reader is introduced first to Revered Stephen Drew, and we come to think we know him, a bit, and then he, as a character, is basically yanked away. The shutters close, the door slams shut, and the only additions to his character we get are in the form of hearsay. Which would be fine...except in my case, I was so put off and annoyed by the next two characters we view the story through that I kept rolling my eyes.
Stephen Drew is a Reverend in a small Vermont town. One of his parishioners, Alice Hayward, is murdered. We see the day of her death and a few weeks afterward through Stephen's eyes, see his loss of faith after the tragic event.
His whole world is changed by Alice's death, and with it, his way of viewing the path that he's chosen.
"Do you pray?" I hadn't meant it to be an especially challenging or antagonistic inquiry - though I did hear in my head the homonym, prey, and that part of me that I have discovered is capable of unexpected bouts of savagery and anger may have lent an edge to my voice..."
Then we are cut off from Stephen and the reader enters the character of the state attorney, Catherine Benincasa, who further investigates Alice's death, and decides that Revered Drew isn't telling everything he knows about the victim. I don't know what it was about this character that annoyed me so much, but I do know that through her, the reader is beaten over the head with the idea that "other people find something disturbing about the good Reverend" instead of letting the reader gradually come to that realization.
Then the reader enters the world of inspirational writer Heather Laurent. Maybe it's because the previous section of the book had been written in the voice of a sharp tongued, jaded, cynic...but the transition was a bit much for me. All the details about angels and miracles are one thing, but on the heels of such a negative person, I was unable to make the U-turn. The excerpts of Heather's writings, though, yielded some riches.
"...the whole of autumn is about transience. The entire natural world seems to be shutting down, moldering, growing still. The days are short, the nights are long, and everything looks a little bleak - except for those leaves. Those kaleidoscopically lovely maples and birches and oaks allow us to gaze for a moment at the wonder of nature and to accept the inevitable quiescence of our own aura. Like so much else around us, it's not the leaves' beauty that moves us: It's the fact that their beauty won't last."
Lastly, we are introduced to Katie Hayward, Alice's daughter. A girl that her new friend Heather Laurent would be correct in describing with her words, "We may talk a good game and write even better ones, but we never outgrow those small wounded things we were when we were five and six and seven."
Katie was orphaned on a violent Sunday night...and as a result, there is this story. She's seen too much for a teenage girl, and knows too many truths about the world. "That's one thing I have learned about women like my mom: There are no people in the world who are better at keeping secrets. You want to find a good spy? Pick a battered woman. There are things they won't tell a soul. And they can really take a punch." Brutal.
So why did I feel cheated? I suppose because it seems as if there is a real human story in "Secrets of Eden". One that could have been gradually revealed, in all its scars and fragility. One the reader could despair over, think through, emotionally connect to. But instead, the secrets are hidden in a way that once they are revealed, they seem to be more mica than gold. The effort to uncover them ends up seeming more a fool's errand than a treasure hunt.
Summary of Secrets of Eden: A Novel
From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Midwives, and Skeletons at the Feast comes a novel of shattered faith, intimate secrets, and the delicate nature of sacrifice."There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself. Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about . . . angels.
Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents' murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice?s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen ? who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him.
But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself. . .and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.
Secrets of Eden is both a haunting literary thriller and a deeply evocative testament to the inner complexities that mark all of our lives. Once again Chris Bohjalian has given us a riveting page-turner in which nothing is precisely what it seems. As one character remarks, ?Believe no one. Trust no one. Assume all of our stories are suspect.?
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