Just finished an excellent novel by Doris Betts, Souls Raised from the Dead. It's about a girl of 13, Mary Grace Thompson, and her family. She goes into renal failure and that is the crisis the story is built around. Her father is a North Carolina state police trooper, her mother a slut who abandoned her daughter and husband, and the father has two women who love him. The grandparents round out the characters in the novel. People struggle with their faith and there is a Christian slant, I think, but there's no preaching. Some characters are religious and some are not, and Ms Betts treats every one with sympathy, "inhabiting" each of her characters, writing scenes that alternate between each character's viewpoint, a technique that was used by John Gardner to good effect a lot.
It kind of gave me a boost in faith, of sorts. Or at least I thought about mortality and what might be waiting for me when I die.
It's a good read.
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Note that this review contains no spoilers.
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