Rosalyce's Full Review: Sheri Reynolds - The Rapture of Canaan
Sheri Reynolds gives us a book that lets us get a glimpse into what religious cult living is like. Sheri Reynolds’ writings make you feel like you are there living and doing as the characters in the book are living and doing. Sheri Reynolds paints, with words, a picture you can see clearly as your are reading.
The Rapture of Canaan is told to us in the first person of Ninah Huff . We learn what life is like for a teenage girl who loves to hear her Nanna tell, time after time, the story of how Nanna’s own mother shot her father. Nanna is the wife of Grandpa Herman. Grandpa Herman is the leader of The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almighty Baptizing Wind. Grandpa Herman never misses a Sunday that he doesn’t remind the congregation about sin and the sinners among their own church, and he especially singles out Leila (Nanna), his own wife, for her sin of lying about what she knew about her mother shooting her father.
Grandpa Herman has a strange way of preaching and running the camp of The Church of Fire and Brimstone and God’s Almight Baptizing Wind. The camp is made up of family members. Ninah is a younger sister to brothers and sisters that are much older than she. Ninah is just coming into the curious stage of being a teen. Curious about Jesus, about life and love. Ninah gets feelings that she can’t describe and has no idea as to what they mean. Ninah tries to go by the teachings of Grandpa Herman but it is hard to do when she is in school with children not of the camp. When Ninah sees every day that if she does not abide by Grandpa Herman’s teaching there will be punishment, she tries to do what is right by God and the church laws and by Grandpa Herman‘s laws.
Family member or not, Grandpa Herman metes out punishment to those he thinks have sinned. James is punished for ’polluting’ his bed and must sleep on nettles and thorns, Ben Harback’s punishment for imbibing in liquor is a night spent in a freshly opened grave and praying with out ceasing until morning. Ben doesn’t learn his lesson on paying for your sins and is again punished with 40 days in the dark cellar for fornicating with a woman outside the compound. Ninah walks with shells in her shoes or sleeps on nettles and burrs numerous times so that she will know the pain of Jesus. The only thing is Ninah doesn’t always tell others of where she thinks she has sinned so she is self-imposing her punishment.
Nanna is Ninah’s salvation. She has but to run to Nanna whenever she was feeling down or hurt. The only thing was that Ninah didn’t tell Nanna about her feelings when it came to James, Ninah’s prayer partner. James is the son of the husband of Ninah’s older sister and Ninah knows that she shouldn’t have feelings such as she has for James but James is feeling some of the same things and with being prayer partners they are always together during evening prayer time. Ninah and James both want to know about Jesus and what is right and so they pray and ask Jesus to speak to them either through Him or through each other. The more they try to hear what Jesus has to say to them the more their feelings come to the surface about each other. Here the authors words have us spell bound and wanting to read more because these two youth have all the feelings of a grown-up but are still naïve enough not to know the ramifications of their actions.
When Ninah becomes pregnant and tells James, the author takes us through the turmoil that any adolescent would go through under normal circumstances in a situation like this, then adds those problems that would be associated with living in a religious cult community. The author manages to keep us wanting to read on.
As Ninah struggles in her beliefs, she continues to question what is right or wrong in Grandpa Herman’s laws. The author does a good job of weaving a tale of human frailty mixed with love and moral issues that a teenage girl might experience.
This book is one that will make you not want to put it down but when you get to the end you feel like there should have been more. Sheri Reynolds might have given us a glimpse into how the cult felt when Ninah took it upon herself to “make Canaan right”.
The Rapture of Canaan is the second novel for Sheri Reynolds. Her first novel Bittersweet Landing was nominated for Old GRANTA Young American Author award. The Rapture of Canaan was an Oprah Book Club selection. Her third novel , A Gracious Plenty was published in 1997. I’ve not read any other books by Sheri Reynolds but if all her books are anything like The Rapture of Canaan I will definitely seek her out the next time I buy a book.
From the author of Bitterroot Landing--hailed by the Richmond State as a splendid contribution to Southern literature --comes a stunning story woven a...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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