At the beginning there were often hundreds of pilgrims milling around the Boyds' house, patiently waiting their turn in the driveway, each one hoping for their own healing encounter with Helene. TV stations sent reporters when prayer vigils were held on the front lawn. But there are new miracles and new healers and people have forgotten about Helene. Eight years have passed since the accident, and nowadays only the faithful and the desperate still appear.Despite her prolificacy and popularity, I have never read Alice Hoffman before – years ago I gave up on Oprah Book Club Picks as samey-same downtrodden girl overcomes extraordinary situation and lives happily ever after plotlines, and I had mentally lumped Hoffman into the Oprah category based on one book (Here on Earth) that I never bothered to read – so I went into Faithful with the feeling of probably righting an unjust wrong. But know what it's about? A downtrodden girl who overcomes an extraordinary situation and lives happily ever after. Based on the author's popularity, I at least expected some fine writing, but I was disappointed there as well: this book is just okay, for while at points I did find it touching, I was more often annoyed by the author's emotional manipulation and odd writing choices. Perhaps if you're a fan of Hoffman's prior work you'll like this as well, but based on this one book, I won't be going back for more.
People say if you face your worst fear the rest is easy, but those are people who are afraid of rattlesnakes or enclosed spaces, not of themselves and the horrible things they’ve done.Faithful opens with a scene about “the miracle of the candles”: every year on the anniversary of a terrible car accident, the local high school lights candles at the site of the tragedy. And every year, these ordinary candles burn steadily throughout the hours of the night; many in the morning looking as fresh as though they had just been lit. When this story is further explored, we learn that on the night of the accident, seventeen-year-old Shelby had been driving, and while she walked away from the totalled car with hardly a scratch, her best friend and passenger Helene was sent into a coma. Now being taken care of in her childhood bedroom, people come from all over to visit Helene; claiming that she has healing powers. Between these whispers of miracles, the angel that came to Shelby on the night of the accident, and the beautiful unsigned postcards that arrive in the mail with the perfect messages just as Shelby most needs them, I thought that this book was going to be about faith and wonder and the healing of the soul, but it's not – soon enough the narrative moves away from this small town on Long Island and all this miracle business (like Helene herself) gets forgotten.
What this book is about: When the accident first occurs, Shelby is so guilt-ridden that she refuses to speak, and after a suicide attempt, she is sent to a psych ward. Eventually her mother brings her back home, and after spending two years hibernating in her parents' basement, Shelby moves to NYC with the only person she still speaks with; her pot dealer Ben. The rest of the book details how Shelby gets over her PTSD – going from a hermetic penitent with a shaved head to someone with a handful of close friends, a pack of dogs she's stolen one by one, and optimistic plans for the future – and along the way she learns not to judge people by their appearance, to never give up on teenagers who lose their way, and eventually to appreciate all that her mother (who suffers soap opera-ish setbacks) has done for her.
As for the writing: at first I was charmed by the anonymous postcards, but eventually there were just too many of them (and I rolled my eyes at the moment that the mystery of who was sending them was solved). There were just too many urgent situations: self-harm (and why was this never mentioned again?), rape (and why was this never reported?), animal abuse, infidelity, juvenile delinquency, dead children, missing children, a gangster who would punch a woman in the nose, cancer, homelessness, good women and their bad men. And there was just so much repetition: why was Ben always referred to as “Ben Mink”? How many times did we need to hear about the dining table that belonged to his great-aunt, Ida Mink? How many mentions of the same Chinese Food restaurant – Hunan Kitchen – and over and over the fortune cookies Shelby refuses to read? Yes, Shelby doesn't like children, except for Mimi's. We learn late in the book that Ben Mink cried at Bambi in grade four, and then it's brought up many more times as though this late revealed detail is the pivot of the whole tale. I was impatient with the fact that all the boys back in school had been secretly in love with Shelby (gosh, but Helene had been the pretty and popular one!), and even though she has treated them badly, these boys are still lovestruck (and stalkerish) into adulthood. Too many coincidences, too many repetitions, and too many purple scenes:
James picks up a rock and throws it as far as he can. Shelby feels a chill. She may have lost him to the burden he carries. He has been trapped here since he was ten years old. Under this pale sky there is a soul as free as a bird and a man who has never taken off his mourning clothes. Shelby folds her arms around James and presses her face to his. She can hear his heart beating against hers. He's in there somewhere, just as she was when she couldn't say anything or believe in anything or want anything or see anything or be anything. She was hiding inside, waiting for an angel.So, no, this wasn't my favourite book, but I am glad to have read Faithful; if only to confirm that my instincts about Hoffman had been right in the first place. This is a very low three stars.
