The first line was small, timid, and red. I was scared, but it was the only way through. I breathed deeply and drew the line longer, pushed harder, and it bloomed.Watch How We Walk is the first novel by Jennifer LoveGrove, a published poet and short story writer, who was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and uses her inside experience to shine a light on the darker side of this little understood community. Being a poet, LoveGrove plays with the novel's construction with varying results: chapters are either from the first-person point of view of Emily as a twenty-year-old living in Toronto, or from the third-person point of view, focusing on Emily at ten-years-old and living with her family, and this was a curious but ultimately satisfying structure; but LoveGrove also -- annoyingly -- foregoes quotation marks for dialogue, and even though so many authors that I admire have been doing this (Cormac McCarthy, Lisa Moore), the system of dashes and never using a "he said" and having the same person speaking twice in a row, with separate dashes, made for an unnecessary muddle. But to the story.
It hurt. I clenched my teeth, then smiled.
I etched another line, perpendicular to the first. It burned, clear and pure, both pain and pleasure, sheer release. Red beaded and dripped down my arm, but I didn’t look away. Compared to everything else that had happened, it was nothing.
I clenched my fist tight, then opened it. Something surged through my veins -- a warm rush, a high, and then, exquisite release.
I stretched out my arm and admired my newfound craft. A perfect red letter L.
At ten, Emily wants nothing more than to grow up to be a full-time Pioneer -- someone devoted to Witnessing the Truth door-to-door -- and as she believes completely in what her parents and the elders at the Kingdom Hall have taught her, Emily is eager and pious and willing to keep learning. She's also a normal kid: awkward about speaking during the door-to-door canvassing (and dreading having a kid from school answer the door); awkward about having to step into the hall of her school during the national anthem and Our Father; wanting friends but afraid to associate with "worldly" people. Meanwhile, Emily's older sister Lenora is a perfect and confident JW kid: knowledgeable about the belief system, she was baptised early, participates admirably during meetings, gets straight As at school, and is modest and obedient. Everything appears perfect in this family -- in a community where appearances are the most important thing -- until Lenora enters high school, cuts her hair, and starts hanging out with worldlies on the sly.
At twenty, Emily has left her family to attend university in the city:
All my energy went into planning my escape: researching universities, filling out forms, creating a budget, getting a summer job. These were things considered normal, even commendable for most teenagers, but for me, it was forbidden.We know that Emily is trying to get over some sort of family tragedy and she is a mess: carving letters and numbers into her skin; compulsively cleaning her apartment and washing her hands; counting all of her steps; and having conversations and arguments with Lenora in her head, usually ending with Lenora convincing Emily to do something she doesn't want to do.
As the sections alternate between the young Emily's family rupturing under the strain of the ever more rebellious Lenora and the older Emily trying to fulfill the wishes of the sister in her head, the long hinted at tragedy is revealed, throwing focus on who Emily eventually becomes. Even with the inventive structure, this is a fairly standard plot, so what makes Watch How We Walk stand out is the look into the JW culture, and I found that to be the novel's strength and, to some degree, its weakness.
Naturally, all children raised within a religion can be said to be brainwashed; told to accept on faith the beliefs of their family and community. As LoveGrove describes here, those stakes are raised for JW kids who believe 100% in the looming Armageddon and the Resurrection only of the faithful, and while dialogue and discussions of Watchtower articles are a mainstay of the Hall meetings -- and children are encouraged to ask for clarification of doctrine they don't understand -- it is forbidden to actually question the beliefs themselves. And as much as the community's purpose might appear to be to affirm amongst themselves and then spread their beliefs to others, in practise, these people's lives are devoted to dramatic and petty powerplays: the men try to outdo each other in shows of piety and canvassing, trying to climb the ladder of power until reaching the ultimate goal of becoming elders; and the women spend all their energy spying and gossiping, trying to discover and denounce those families who aren't living in perfect faith. Those who are denounced must pay the ultimate sacrifice, becoming "disfellowshipped"; doomed to be excluded and shunned by their community and family. And as LoveGrove explains in this article, being disfellowshipped is especially devastating for people who have spent a lifetime being discouraged from making friendships outside of the JW community. The impact that the faith has on Emily is well-described as she prays constantly to Jehovah, forever afraid for the ultimate judgement of hers and Lenora's transgressions, but there was something off-puttingly passive about these sections (like Emily is simply witnessing the events?) and young Emily doesn't quite come across as a real person.
As for the downside of the JW setting: it was hard for me to accept that not one of the faithful was simply a good person finding fulfillment in their beliefs. We get to know Emily's parents, and it is revealed that her father (an impatient and short-tempered man) clings to his beliefs because of a childhood trauma (and would also dearly love to be an elder one day), and her mother joined the JWs as an adult when she fell in love (and if she regrets it now, she outwardly conforms while engaging in small rebellions). If she joined as an adult, then so too must have her younger brother, Uncle Tyler, whose conversion would make zero sense: from his unwillingness to cut his hair to his worldly friends, he wouldn't be risking being disfellowshipped -- and therefore losing his family -- had he never been baptised. As I said, all of the Sisters are gossipy spies, and the elders are sadistic perverts; seemingly only interested in holding power and forcing people to intimately describe their transgressions. And there's a lost opportunity here, too: a character is disfellowshipped and we never revisit that person to see what the shunning is actually like in practise.
And my final complaint might also be attributed to LoveGrove's poetic sensibilities: there's an allusion made when Emily is young to her being fascinated by tightrope walkers, and when she's older, someone notices her excellent posture and invites her to join a circus school. I understand this as metaphor -- when Emily is young her favourite hymn at the Hall (the only one with a bouncy piano line) goes, Lets watch how we walk, and watch how we talk. That thus we may be alert and wise, and, of course she spent her childhood forever walking a thin line: between the insular world of the JWs and the wider community she meets at school; between loyalty to Lenora (and not tattling on her) and fearing for her ultimate fate; between what's she's been taught and what she sees. But when the metaphorical becomes the literal and Emily is attempting to actually cross a highwire, it felt clumsy and heavy-handed (and not very poetic).
I didn't find Watch How We Walk to be a compelling page-turner -- it had a very passive vibe -- but it was highly readable (even if I had to often reread dialogue to parse who was speaking). The inside look at the Jehovah's Witness community was very interesting (even if I would have appreciated seeing even one follower who was in it for the right reasons) and the sections with the older Emily were intriguing (when she wasn't at circus school). Does that sound conflicted enough? This book had plusses and flaws, and while I didn't feel any true connection with the characters, it certainly wasn't a waste of time.
The longlist for the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize (with my personal ranking):
The 2014 Giller Prize winner is Us Conductors
*****
I have always tried to be kind to JWs who come to the door as I have always thought that they are honestly fearful of my fate and are simply trying to lead nonbelievers to the right (in their minds anyway) path. It's a whole different perspective that LoveGrove provides here -- where those Pioneers are just trying to look good in their community's eyes by having good numbers on their time charts -- but, again, that feels overly cynical. Do none of them actually care about me and my soul?
When the girls were little, my kindness must have been taken as interest because there was this one group of two or three old ladies who made repeat visits to me (I think I should have never agreed to take their literature the first time). Mal would have been under one, making Kennedy just under three, and I'd have had a baby on my hip and a toddler hanging off my leg as I opened the door, and there would be these old ladies, complimenting me on my beautiful daughters and pushing their Watchtower on me. Eventually, I got the hard sell, and they wanted to come into my home and talk to me. I told them, that last time, that while I'd take their magazines, I wasn't interested in talking because I was fulfilled in my own faith, wished them the best, etc. The lead old lady asked me what my faith might be. I told her that the girls and I are all Catholics, baptised, and happily attending church on Sundays (and this was absolutely true -- although I wouldn't have told her that one of my main satisfactions on Sundays was the daycare and Children's Liturgy that the girls attended; often the only hour of the week that I didn't have a baby on my hip and a toddler hanging off my leg).
The old lady looked at me mischievously and said that she had been raised a Catholic but had found the one true God in Jehovah in later life. If she could come in, she could show me scripture that would prove that her beliefs were right and mine were wrong. I said a polite no thank you, and then she gave me the hardest hard sell: She was simply trying to save the souls of me and my girls, and if I didn't think that what she believed was right, perhaps I should invite her in and try to convert her; try to save her soul; didn't I care as much about her as she cared about me? I found this to be so stinging and mean that, for the first time, I gave them the bum's rush, didn't take any literature, and closed the door (with a smile).
But even that didn't stop me from being kind to JWs who come to the door (I don't think I've ever had a Mormon or other door-to-door religious canvasser, so this is all about the JWs). But now I never take their literature, simply smile, say no thanks, tell them to have a nice day, and close the door before it goes any further. LoveGrove says that as a child, she was often relieved when people played possum and she didn't have to give the speech, but I've never had a child come to the door -- generally just old people, and this may be a sign of the times. Reading Watch How We Walk, it struck me that it must be harder than ever today to keep children untainted, untouched by the worldly society around them. And maybe that will lead to the end of the JWs by attrition, and according to LoveGrove, that wouldn't be such a bad thing.
