I tried to post this comment on Studio 360′s website, but it was too long.
I read this book last year when you first suggested it. At that point I was on the cusp of coming out to myself, but wasn’t there yet. I’ve also been drenched in conservative Christianity since birth. And I wrote my dissertation on African American history. So I was very eager to read this book, but it just didn’t click for me. The faith aspect didn’t work. I didn’t recognize the Christians I knew in the main character. He was so ambivalent about faith and yet controlled by it. The folks in Christian circles I know are so much more passionate about faith and gripped by this desire to be close to God.
But when I started thinking about writing this comment, I realized nine months of being out to myself might just have changed my perspective on this. I’m starting to realize how entrenched my own internal homophobia has been. I don’t care any more what the Bible says about stuff, but I do care immensely that I maintain a good relationship with my mom. How does one do both, when my wonderful mom believes that faith in God is the most meaningful thing in life, and indeed the only way to have meaning in life. She is more willing to accept my homosexuality as long as it doesn’t alienate me from God. Well, I’ve been alienated from a didactic God far longer than I’ve been aware of my own sexuality, and for many reasons other than sexuality (though that is a major piece).
So I guess I can understand better how the main character could basically be alienated from his faith in high school, but continue to feel controlled by it–something I couldn’t understand when I read the book initially.
I do think one of the reasons I had such a hard time with the book is that so many of my own objections to Christianity are rooted in my identification as a thinking woman. The kind of Baptist church I was raised in praised schoolwork, introduced me to the possibilities of literary criticism and multiple translations, and yet I walked away with this idea that becoming a scholar was one of the most demeaning of life choices. Really, an arm-chair intellectual, when I could be a missionary? (African American history has in some ways continued this line of thought–though replacing missionary with activist). It is hard for me to believe that my thirsty mind is the sign of health instead of latent wickedness that needs to be curbed.
But the main character in this book does not seek an intellectual understanding of Christianity, nor does his problems or wrestling with faith really arise from his mind. So I had a hard time relating to him, when I thought that I would perfectly relate to the book based on your interview. Maybe that is an indication of the success of the author in achieving this very particular narrator, who is not very smart–and how rarely, really, we read a novel written from that perspective.
But my biggest frustration was that I did not come away from the book with new insights into this thing that is such a close and yet often hated aspect of myself. I thought perhaps as an outsider, he would be able to introduce me to new aspects of the faith, particularly as it is explored in the South (I’m from the West).
I’m still not sure whether my frustration with the book is either the author’s fault of writing or my fault in imagination.
