OK, I feel like a sap for loving this so much, but I confess I did. And goodness, I have to give props for a book so moving it made me cry--more than once.
I give you fair warning. This is friendship cake indeed. Light and sweet enough to carry a label cautioning you about cavities and diabetic shock. A novel about five women: a young pastor of a Christian church in North Carolina and four of her elderly parishioners in a graying congregation. We get to know each in turn in the five introductory chapters in their own voices, although the rest of the novel is third person. Each chapter begins with a recipe, as each is part of a women's society committee in the church putting together a cookbook.
We first meet Margaret Peele, and her strong folksy voice drew me right in. A widow, Margaret is the sensible center of the church fellowship. Childless herself, young people are drawn to her willingness to listen and help. Louise Fisher is the woman who dares speaks out on those things others would ignore. Never married, she's a woman whose heart has long been given to another woman, her best friend of decades who is dying of Alzheimers. Beatrice Newgarden, a widow with three grown children, is a meddlesome busybody--but someone who at the core has a good heart, and initiates the cookbook project because she hopes it can bind them all together--as friends. Jessie Jenkins is the one black member of the otherwise "all-white" church. A mother and grandmother long separated from the husband who abandoned her years ago. Their pastor Reverend Charlotte Stewart is new to the church. She's straight out of seminary and well aware the only reason she was hired is because the church can't afford to pay what a male preacher would demand. She was drawn into a Methodist church as a child because she as the "daughter of an alcoholic... longed for an hour without surprises."
I read this book because it was recommended on "The Ultimate Reading List" in the "Inspirational Fiction" section, which listed Christian Fiction. I'm not a believer, but that doesn't mean I didn't feel I couldn't learn or be moved by those of faith--I love CS Lewis, so I decided to give the list a shot. Five books listed were available in neighborhood book stores, including this one, and those were the ones I tried. I have to tell you, the others didn't put forth a form of Christianity I found the least admirable. Rather those books' worldview came across as cramped, narrow-minded, even bigoted. I have a feeling the other "Christian Fiction" authors would not like this book or Lynne Hinton, herself a Christian pastor. In fact several of them have pastors as characters resembling her Charlotte as their villains. I'm not claiming this as great literature. But I'm happy to be in the company of Maya Angelou, who said she'd welcome Hinton as a friend, and "welcome an invitation to sit down at her table"--because the vision she presents here, particularly in contrast to those other books, comes across as compassionate and wise.
