. . . the more she has tried to claim God, the more He has rejected her. She wants to be lost in Him, but He vomits her out again and again, and each time He asks even more from her before He’ll permit her return.
Catholic guilt in the Sixties held together many a floundering marriage, but it might not be strong enough to bind 30-something Ellen in stale servitude to a man who has forgotten how to love his family under the oppressive roof of his parents’ home—where unpardonable secrets lurk behind their parochial edicts.
For a novel where not much happens, there’s a lot of desperate misery and a touch of madness. For that reason, despite the critical praise for A. Manette Ansay’s sensuous prose and vivid characters, and despite Oprah’s endorsement, I cannot recommend this 1994 novel during these times already mired in so much depression.