This compelling fictional story of the Reluctant Christians depicts the lifelong journey of a mother, Nora Young, and her daughter Kathryn as they struggle to remove themselves from the restrictive tentacles of life in a small town dominated by a conservative, misogynistic religion.
This is a love story that exposes abuse within religious organizations, but by no means is this story anti-religion. Rather, it is a story of self-reliance and resilience that explores the strength of the soul within. This is a love story that spans decades of pioneering a new path for a family in a new time for women who seek freedom, and break barriers of behavior dictation, despite the fear of repercussion.
As the author, I was inspired by the words of Woodrow Wilson, “There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed”.
The characters find themselves united to bring comfort and forgiveness to their lives. The strength of their relationships challenges them to defy the unjust suffering and persecution of sister ancestors, one another, and all women who have encountered prejudice and abuse of power.
Together they rise above with wisdom, compassion, lessons learned and groundbreaking leadership.
This compelling fictional story of the Reluctant Christians depicts the lifelong journey of a mother, Nora Young, and her daughter Kathryn as they struggle to remove themselves from the restrictive tentacles of life in a small town dominated by a conservative, misogynistic religion.
This is a love story that exposes abuse within religious organizations, but by no means is this story anti-religion. Rather, it is a story of self-reliance and resilience that explores the strength of the soul within. This is a love story that spans decades of pioneering a new path for a family in a new time for women who seek freedom, and break barriers of behavior dictation, despite the fear of repercussion.
As the author, I was inspired by the words of Woodrow Wilson, “There is no higher religion than human service. To work for the common good is the greatest creed”.
The characters find themselves united to bring comfort and forgiveness to their lives. The strength of their relationships challenges them to defy the unjust suffering and persecution of sister ancestors, one another, and all women who have encountered prejudice and abuse of power.
Together they rise above with wisdom, compassion, lessons learned and groundbreaking leadership.
The child waited, buried deep within the worn blankets of her small bed. She waited until it became quiet downstairs. When the quiet came, she knew there would soon be noises she did not want to hear. Noises that made her afraid. Noises that made her shake and drew pictures in her mind to accompany them that were just too disturbing to her young mind.
When the quiet came, she quickly rolled to the bed’s edge, escaped from the blankets, and moved her best friend into the place in her bed where she had been lying. Her best friend, a huge stuffed teddy bear with no name. A bear with the safest arms she knew in her world, with the softest fur to cuddle and an unconditional heart only for her. Without a name, the bear could be anyone she needed him to be. Any fantasy. Any hero. With the bear bravely taking her place under the covers of her little bed, the child tiptoed to her closet, taking a pillow and blanket from the shelf. She tucked them deep into the back corner of the closet and dove into this sanctuary pulling the door closed behind her.
It was so dark in the closet, but it was tight and warm. The musty smell was familiar and welcome. The clothes hanging above her became her impenetrable shields of protection, as if they were valiant soldiers. If there were any spiders present, she chose not to think about them, happy to share their space. Anyone looking in on her would assume the bear was the sleeping child and walk away. That was the whole point. They would walk away. Or, in the worst -case scenario, one day the bear would undoubtedly sacrifice himself to any danger that her young mind imagined would surely come to her. Anyone coming to hurt, stab, steal or touch the child, would instead find her champion, the bear, in her place. She would be safe, hidden deep within the closet. If she didn’t seek this sanctuary, she would suffer sleepless sweaty terror. Terror prompted by the noises she hated some of which were ironically, laughter. Laughter of strangers. The “mother-has-company” noises.
Within the closet she was incredibly safe. It was a fortress in her young mind. Once secured in the confines she was always quick to sleep, desperate for dreams. Knowing the night would soon pass and she would wake to fling the door open and rush to her bed to give hugs of thanks to the bear for once again saving her. She would sit the bear upright on the bed after making the covers up. This is where he would wait all day for her return. She loved knowing she would come home to his always-smiling face and warm loving eyes. As she dressed for school, she would talk to him. She liked to tell him about the dreams she had the night before. After all, it was he who was responsible for the dreams being good ones. He had protected her and enabled her peace. She was proud of their cleverness.
As the child looked in the mirror, readying herself for the day, she would practice making herself ugly. At this awkward age of ten it wasn’t so difficult. Her teeth needed braces and glasses covered the eyes. She was completely unaware of any positive aspects of her appearance. Her goal was to be as homely as possible to thwart anyone she feared. At this time, that was virtually everyone she encountered, but mostly mother’s company. If mother had an ugly unbecoming child, perhaps they would stop coming.
Kathryn (Kate) Young was the daughter of a promiscuous Mormon woman, living in a tiny farm town, bearing the burden of her mother’s sins minute by minute. It didn’t take long for her to know damn well that not all of mother’s visitors were her uncle. In fact, none of them were. There was “Uncle Bob,” the traveling optometrist who came to town every couple of months to fit folks for glasses. He would set his examination equipment in the pharmacy at the local drug store with his eye chart on one wall and a chair at the other. Everyone would line up to have their vision tested and he would write orders for their glasses.
Mother would drag Kathryn for a checkup every single time Bob came to town. Kathryn lied during every exam, just from pure hatred of the fat four-eyed freak she knew would be having a beer at her house later. He always acted confused because Kate’s vision fluctuated so much. There were days she tested half blind and others she tested cross-eyed. The moron would huddle in the corner with her mother and whisper his suspicion that Kathryn was not telling the truth about what she could or could not see. Kate would just sit innocently on the fountain stool, ice cream in hand, vision perfect, watching as the freak fondled her mother’s arm. Kate ended up with 5 pair of different prescription glasses before the guy quit coming around. She overheard talk that was he transferred to Kansas, taking his wife and three kids with him.
A Utah State highway ran through the middle of town. With Mother working as a checker at the only grocery store in town, she had lots of opportunities to meet travelers. Mostly truck drivers. Always losers. Kate just never understood why they had to come to their home. It was sick and wrong. And it scared her. So many times, mother’s company would have to prove some kind of stellar character trait by being cute and funny to the little girl. Kate was picked up, tickled, chased, and cajoled. She was humiliated, and she hated it. The most hateful part was the way her mother acted. Her mother laughed with delight, stupid enough to think the man’s manifestation of kindness to her child was in some way a remarkable promise of hope. A declaration of this guy’s desire to somehow fit into their “male void.” Of course, the hope only lasted the night, and then they were gone, and the male void prevailed. Mother usually changed the color of her hair after a few bad affairs. Kate started sleeping in the closet about the time her mother went blonde.
Kathryn Young was born in August. By the time she was born, the marriage of her parents was already doomed. Ben and Nora had been high school sweethearts. In a town this small, it was a miracle they weren’t too closely related not to have retarded or deformed kids. The problem was, Ben was the handsome high school basketball hero with a college scholarship, and Nora was farmstock born to iron his shirts and waitress Ben’s way through school. Ben’s ego got the better of him at college. While Nora was lining up plates of pancakes on her forearms and resting orders on her growing pregnant belly at the Bluebird Café, Ben was fucking a cheerleader. This didn’t exactly fall in accordance with the vows they had taken in the Mormon temple. Theirs was a sealed marriage, one for time and all eternity. Nora suspected Ben’s infidelity because his massive ego prevented him from hiding the evidence very well. She suffered the secret, hoping the baby and subsequent improvement to her body would remedy the situation. It may well have if the cheerleader hadn’t become pregnant as well.
Even with his obvious guilt, Ben was indignant and self-righteous. He had places to go and worlds to conquer. Certain his new-found talents were far above this hometown farm girl that he married. Ben made his choice clear to her right there in the hospital when Kate was born. He was choosing the cheerleader, leaving Nora to shuffle home to her parents, babe in arms. This was the biggest scandal in years for the little Mormon community. Interesting sides were taken and debated at length in whispering tones at the post office as well as every other gathering place in the small town, especially during Sunday services.
With indoctrinated persecution of women and the advocation of a woman’s subservience, the social consensus was that Nora must have done something wrong to lose a good catch like Ben. Nora couldn’t make her man happy, because above all, in the Mormon faith it is a woman’s role in life to serve her patriarch husband and Nora had obviously failed.
Ben obtained a rare Temple divorce by virtue of the fact he was a descendant of Mormon hierarchy. Ben’s father had more than enough church influence to initiate the divorce. Ben and the cheerleader moved to Seattle, and never even sent Nora’s baby a birthday card.
For Nora, her path to eternal life was doomed. She had no husband to pull her through the eternal veil to the Celestial Kingdom. She went home to her parent’s farm with her tiny newborn and became a checker at her uncle’s grocery store. For Nora, that was as good as it was going to get for an awfully long time. Nora had lost her dignity and certainly had no self-esteem. Her flagrant rebellion against the community who damned her and the god who abandoned her raised its ugly head in her promiscuous behavior. Loneliness drove her mad with endless searching for solace. If she had had an ounce of courage, she would have moved far away from this town. But Nora’s only venture away from home was going off to college with Ben and that had brought the devastation of her marriage. Who knew what the outside world might steal from her again?
Nora’s parents, Noah, and Mary Anderson were her only allies with their ears closed to rumors and their hearts were wide open to their daughter’s child. This was home, and it was safe. Nora assumed her role of guilt and went about living the best she could. Her own pain crowded her ability to truly recognize the little girl she was raising. It was easier to let her mother and father parent Kate.
As the years passed, Nora never thought too deeply about Kate. Kate was such an incredibly quiet kid. Easy to love since she rarely misbehaved, but easy to forget because she kept herself hard to notice. Kate was self-sufficient and undemanding. She always seemed to be watching everything, soaking it in and listening. Kate was compliant yet independent. Nora knew that Kate didn’t have many friends, but the little girl seemed to like it that way. Kate was a reader and a dreamer, she tended to her chores and was always at her grandmother’s side to help on the farm. Kate’s grandparents were everything to her, and she spent every possible moment with them. Nora had rented a small house a few miles from her parent’s farm and Kate thought nothing of the long walk to her grandparent’s home. Kate wasn’t a child underfoot; she was part of the team it took to keep the farm going. There wasn’t one chore she balked at helping with.
The planting season was a special time on the farm, tilling and seeding the earth. Kate felt as if she was helping to create a miracle. The garden was something to be nurtured, and pride was the result. Kate never wanted to go home to her mother. She would sometimes be invited to sleep over at her grandparent’s home, in a bed, not a closet. Those nights always closed with prayer. Her Nana would take her hand and they would kneel with hands clasped underneath their chins. When she was very young, the prayer was simple, “now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, if I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take,” then the specific thanks were given for the blessings of the day and names were listed to ask blessings for. Sometimes it was a sick neighbor, sometimes it was asking for rain, sometimes it was a blessing on Kate. The prayer time was very sacred to her grandmother. Most of the time Kate wondered who God was, if he knew her name and what he was going to do about her mother.
Waking on those mornings of her sleep overs was always the ultimate luxury. Her favorite season was the harvest. Burrowed deep in Nana’s down blankets, the chill in the air would only reach her nose and ears. The fresh crisp air would wake her early before the dawn and she would relish her first thoughts of how the day would be. Knowing her Nana would be up already, toasting fresh bread and setting out honey. Bowls of hot cereal would soon be ready. Kate knew she would work tirelessly with her grandfather in the gardens, gather eggs in the hen house, and always wishing she was strong enough to lift hay bales and generally do anything she possibly could with eagerness. Kate would scoot herself into the kitchen to help always shining the brightest smile a child could possibly have at her Grandparents welcoming eyes and big hugs. They never imagined the true darkness of Kate’s private fears, their daughter’s desperate pain and why this child was so attached to them.
This was a sacred world to Kate. She lived within her own heart and blocked out the bad things. It was easier. Kate blocked out her own life with the lives she found in books. Dozens and dozens of books. Once every two weeks, the county bookmobile came into the little town and parked on the street. Ed Anderson, the driver, always knew who would be standing on the corner waiting for his arrival. This mysterious little girl. The child would never make eye contact with him as she stood waiting for him to open the door. He would look down the four steep steps from the bookmobile and smile, but her shyness was literally painful for him to watch. She wore glasses and stood awkwardly waiting to be let in. When he opened the door, she would shuffle by and then seemed to disappear. There really wasn’t anywhere to go, he just watched her submerge herself in the selection of books.
Other folks would come in and out, but this little girl was always first in the door and last to leave when it was time for him to shut down. It took months for her to muster the ability to ask him, in barely audible words, if she could check out more than the two-book limit. He could not say no because he realized that she was going through two books a week. He allowed her three, and within a couple of months she managed to ask him for four. He even guessed she may have taken more, but it was all she could carry on what he suspected was a long walk home. At first, he had tried to engage her in a couple of more lengthy conversations, but the look he got seared his heart. He knew her name and he knew she was ten years old. Anything else asked never received much of a response. Some days it irritated him, and he tried to rile her a bit with a little humor. “I’m gonna run out of books for you one day Kate, then what will you do?”
Obviously, he didn’t mean it, but the gasp he heard, and the piercing blue eyes flung a challenge at him like he had never seen. Ed was instantly ashamed. The strength of that moment would remain with him always. How dare he even consider the possibility. He had stepped where he should not and resolved to keep a steady supply of books coming to that little town, for that little girl for as long as he had the job as the bookmobile driver.
Her selections were quite awesome for a fourth-grade kid. She checked out The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck repetitiously. He realized it wasn’t that she was struggling to get through it but reading it over and over. She read it so many times, he decided he better read it, and discovered an awesome depiction of an oriental women’s life’s journey. A life of phenomenal heartache, perseverance, strength, and ultimate success. He was amazed that this child would find such attachment to such a dramatic and extremely long novel. What he didn’t know was that Kate was obsessed with the novel. The wisdom shown in valuing land, purchasing it and farming reminded Kate of her grandparents and the way they worked their crops and gardens. The persecution of Chinese females was easy for Kate to relate to. The heroine’s strength was what Kate hated her mother for not having and what was growing within her with every page she turned. The day O-Lan killed her baby daughter at birth because there was not enough food to feed the family, and because she had born a female, was a part that Kate read and re-read in gut wrenching sobs as if the loss were not only her own, but for herself as a child. Kate despised the Chinese men in the book just as she despised men in her own life. There was a deep correlation between the Chinese discrimination of women and the Mormon philosophy toward females. This book had more impact on this little girl than anyone could ever imagine.
The Good Earth was just one of the major choices she made. She read the Black Rose, the Silver Chalice, War and Peace, Catcher in the Rye, To Kill a Mockingbird, and hordes of poetry. It was fascinating, this mysterious little girl who was always a little tattered, always alone, and quiet and always at the door of the bookmobile. While she garnered a tremendous amount of knowledge, she also learned that she was poor white trash, her mother, and the creeps she brought home were certainly sinners, her grandparents were saints, and there were better ways of life in the world. Amazing ways of life that held one common denominator for her, hope. What she didn’t understand is how you went about making hopes come true.
School. Nothing about school made much sense to Kate. She was miserable most of the time. Her shyness was never as flagrant as in school. This provoked unkind mockery and dismal days waiting for the end of the school days. The best time of the day was anytime spent with her head buried in books. Her worst time was lunch and recess. Lunch meant having to walk through the line accepting the dispersed food then facing the uncomfortable chore of choosing a place to sit. She had no clique, never sat in the same place or with the same group of kids. She just floated like a lost feather of a winged bird to land as the wind willed. Some kids were kinder than others, rarely did anyone try to befriend her, which would have been responded to with silence anyway. Katie simply trusted no one. Her mind was so incredibly full of far more information than anyone imagined that a group of fifth graders couldn’t possibly stimulate her out of her shell. No classmate could entice her outside of the big and serious world inside of her brain, and certainly couldn’t touch the sensitive heart she had armored away. Kids were notoriously cruel and had a hard time seeing past the crooked teeth, glasses, awkwardness, and the intentionally inconspicuous girl. Besides, if she did make a friend, it was too risky. What if she wanted to come to Kate’s house and became exposed to her mother?
All the kids knew Kate was a brain and pulled the best grades. Yet she was never a discussion participant in class. When recess came, she would run by herself around the track – run and run and run. She was faster than the boys but ignored any taunting challenges to a race. Kate despised playground games. Red Rover, Red Rover, please send someone over. Kate found it to be a stupid game that was a popularity contest from the get-go. Kids lined up, hoping their name would be called so they could streak across the middle and try to burst through the arms of the other team. Some names were never called, and those kids continued to put themselves through it with futile hope recess after recess. Not Kate. Kate had a cyber-learning instinct way before its time. She would beat them all at any game they chose. Consciously, she didn’t admit it to herself, for she hadn’t developed a smidgen of an ego. Her instincts recognized nothing her classmates did presented an adequate challenge for her, so she simply skipped it all and lived her days within herself.
By the time 6th grade rolled around, Kate was having a growth spurt. She was becoming tall, and most of that growth was legs. If she were not so unnoticeable, anyone looking would have seen a remarkable change in Kate. She possessed an elegant stride and an enviable slender profile. Her long dark hair was thick and naturally streaked with highlights that caught the sun. Her huge saucer sized blue eyes were iridescent sapphires bordered by thick black eyelashes and dark eyebrows. Had she not developed the habit of hiding her face under her hair and behind the glasses, had she not had the grossly crooked teeth, she certainly was becoming incredibly beautiful. No one, least of all Kate, recognized these emerging assets.
The year brought many changes in the lives of Kate’s family, her grandparents died. It was within a few months of each other. Nana was the first to become ill, just suddenly tired. Kate stayed with her constantly and the natural tutoring that occurred just from helping, created a young girl who was fully capable of running the household. Things hardly missed stride, whether it was bread baking day, garden tilling, laundry, or canning, these chores were second nature to Kate, and she relished the work. She also had such honor for her grandmother it was her way of showing her beloved grandmother the gifts she had received from her closeness.
When Grandmother died, Kate did not grieve with pain instead she showed respect. She had developed inner strengths and resolves. She grieved with the sadness of missing her grandmother but steadied herself by helping her grandfather and filling the shoes she revered. This worked and gave her a purpose and cause of caring for Grandfather and the farm.
From every mistake she found a lesson, when confused she imagined the voice of her grandmother gently instructing her toward certainty. When exhausted from the toils truly too much for a child, she garnered strength from her grandmother’s ways, recalling the fatigue she often witnessed yet the falter was never there. She would not falter either. She was Grandfather’s salvation, and he was hers.
Kate’s mother must have hidden her own tears, for even at the funeral service, she stood stoic and steely against the condolences of the hypocrites. Nora had been abandoned by this community, and her own mother never even talked to her about her divorce or her heartbreak; her mother never asked and never reached out to console her daughter’s devastation, and now she was dead. The force of the religion was too strong and harsh within her mother to invite intimacy with her daughter, a woman’s proper place had been lost by Nora. This left a chasm of helplessness between Nora and her mother, and now, with her death, all chances for this mother and daughter were forever lost.
The Reluctant Christians was a much deeper read than I expected, almost dense, but not in a bad way. The writing felt a little awkward at first, with so many places that seemed to be missing a comma, and then other places that seemed to have extra commas just thrown in wherever. I thought the book needed some editing, but then I began to wonder if this was just the author’s particular writing style. And once I got used to it the narrative began to flow easier. I was never quite sure in what direction the story would go at any given time, and when I thought I did see the path it was taking I was often wrong. Which is a good thing!
Kate has grown up with a mother who is neglectful and thoughtless, constantly bringing men home, and not nice men. Her haven is her grandparents’ home, and after they pass away she learns that there were things they kept hidden from Kate’s mother, and from the entire town, to Kate’s benefit. Nora was once a loved and obedient daughter, happily married to a Bishop’s son, until he suddenly casts her away for another woman, abandoning Nora and their baby daughter. When her parents pass away and she suddenly realizes that she has also lost Kate, her life takes a major turn.
I dearly love a good character study, and the author definitely delivered on that score. I enjoyed watching Kate blossom from a shy quiet child, who hid in her closet at night when her mother had men over, to a confident young woman learning to navigate her way through life. But her mother’s growth and journey was even more satisfying. Nora started out as a very unlikable character, who seemed to be the villain of the story. But thanks to the kindness, although belated, of her ex-husband’s parents and their friends, she began to find redemption and her own path, and she became a very sympathetic character.
At just under four hundred pages, the writing is very descriptive, providing a vivid tale and a detailed accounting of two women who rise above their misogynistic upbringing and find their own strength and resilience.