tl;dr

A Jewish man falls in love with a book about Nuns.  Report at 10:00!

opening remarks

Now that I’ve read four of the five National Book Critics Circle Award nominees it would be rude not to pick-up the final novel on the list: The Ninth Hour by Alice McDermott.

knee-jerk observations

After losing his job a husband commits suicide leaving behind a pregnant wife.  In steps Sister St Saviour who happens to walk past the apartment with the police in attendance.  I’m impressed at how quickly McDermott sketches out the Sister’s character:

Putting aside the fact that Sister St Saviour’s sins aren’t sins at all – well apart from burying a suicide in hallowed ground and even that is an act of great compassion – the writing here is so damn good.
That is a genuinely stonking opening chapter; it could readily work as a short story about compassion and duty to God.  Sadly, it does end with the passing of Sister St. Saviour (beautifully fleshed out by McDermott) but also provides a fantastic set-up for the rest of the book.
I’ve never been more intrigued by the process of washing and ironing:
There’s such warmth in McDermott’s writing.  She makes it easy to be engaged and invested in her characters.  Sister Jeanne’s innocence and purity, her love for children, should bring out the cynic in me and yet I just want to know more:

Annie – her husband Jim is the one who committed suicide – finds some comfort in the embrace of the local milkman Mr Costello.  There’s this beautiful moment as Annie waits for Mr Costello to visit her small apartment, it will be their first time together, that she recognises that her ‘bare room was a poor woman’s room, an immigrant’s small space.’  There’s no shame in these thoughts, just an honest moment of reflection with the added awareness that when he arrives, Mr Costello will find the place to be neat and well-ordered.

Sally, Annie’s daughter, now grown up and in her teenage years, wants to join the Sisterhood.  To give her a taste of what it means to be a nursing sister she follows Sister Lucy on her rounds.  Unlike Sister Jeanne, who is gentle and kind and doesn’t have a poor word for anyone, Sister Lucy is hard as nails, a practitioner of tough love.  Sally is taken aback by Sister Lucy’s treatment of Mrs Costello, the milkman’s wife (it’s a small world) who lost her leg when a dog bit her.  Sister Lucy’s practical cruelty, especially when compared to the other Nuns is, for me, a little over the top, more caricature than character, that’s not to say she isn’t entirely wrong about Mrs Costello:

Although to be fair to Sister Lucy her attitude might have something to do with seeing her mother die slowly and in great pain from peritonitis when she was seven years old:
I wouldn’t exactly call Sister Lucy a proto-feminist but her desire to protect women from abuse – she is always asking the question: is your husband good to you? – is admirable.  It’s this side of Sister Lucy that rounds out her character:
You can’t choose your family, you also – as Sally discovers – can’t choose the people you sit next to on a train:
Awkward train conversations continued:

Sally’s journey to Chicago is a hilarious horror show of scabby kids, potty-mouthed passengers, a drunk man feeling her up (well, OK that’s just ick) and hearing the detailed life story of a young woman who not only slips a dram of whiskey into Sally’s tea but then begs for money.  Sally sees it as a test of piety:

The train journey, which ends with Sally punching her fellow traveller with the potty mouth, is Sally’s version of the dark night of the soul as beautifully rendered by McDermott.

There’s quite a bit in the novel about hunger, about base desire; to be comforted by Mr Costello in the case of Annie; to be perceived as Sally’s favourite in the case of Sister Illuminata.  It’s not condemned as such – though the Sisters certainly see it as a sin – but rather viewed as irrational.  It’s an acknowledgement that despite the prayers, the deprivations, the compulsion to be pure we are all still human:

The Gist Of It

Who would have thought that a good Jewish boy (me) would adore a book about Nuns?  Alice McDermott, that’s who!  Obviously, she had no idea I was going to read her novel The Ninth Hour, but the book is so warm and generous that it overwhelmed my cynical, Jewish exterior.  It is a religious novel, it is steeped in Godly virtues, in acts of forgiveness, in moments of piety and self-sacrifice.  But the message that comes through is that devotion to God also requires compassion and love and sometimes turning a blind eye.  The Sisters presented in the book all, to one extent or another, compromise for the sake of human decency, for the sake of what’s fair and just even if it doesn’t adhere to God’s Law. That’s not say there aren’t repercussions

… but for Sisters like St. Saviour there is a willingness to take action and then deal with God later.

The story of Anne and her daughter Sally anchors the novel in the world rather than the Convent which only emphasises the complications of being holy and being kind.  Throughout it all, though, McDermott writes with the empathy and love exhibited by her Sisters, even the hard-bitten Sister Lucy, and that makes the novel a true joy to read.

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