Keeping Faith by Jodi Picoult is a book I discovered all on my own. It had not been recommended by anyone, I hadn’t seen a review of it anywhere and I had never heard of the author before. I had book vouchers to spend for some reason, and I was browsing in the ‘Contemporary Fiction’ section when I found it, thought it sounded good and bought it. I have now read all of Picoult’s novels, and she has since become more well-known and widely read, but this one, Keeping Faith is still my favourite (followed closely by Plain Truth)
I think that’s because, as well as the kind of mystery aspects contained in her other novels, this one contains a large element of Magic Realism, which adds something extra and intriguing which sets it apart from your average John Grisham-type novel.
Basically, the story starts with Mariah, a woman with a young daughter (Faith), whose husband has just left her. We see quickly that Mariah is very needy, devastated by the betrayal, and not coping very well with her life. Her daughter, Faith is obviously affected by this, and begins talking to an ‘invisible friend’ whom she refers to as her ‘guard’. A normal reaction for a small girl faced with big changes at home you would think, but it soon transpires that Faith is actually talking not to her ‘guard’, but to God.
Slowly, through various acts and small miracles, word gets around and ‘pilgrims’ and news crews begin to gather at Mariah’s gate. Her mother comes over to help out, as Mariah can’t cope on her own, but there is another cloud on the horizon. Notorious ‘tele-atheist’ Ian, who travels around disproving weeping Madonnas and Jesus-shaped mould stains, hears of Faith and determines to prove Mariah a fake. When Faith develops stigmata, many people start to believe that this is a version of Munchausen’s-by-proxy (http://sids-network.org/experts/msp.htm). Faith’s father decides Mariah is unstable and opens a battle for custody of Faith which it looks like he will win…
Told from the perspective of several characters, but mainly Mariah’s, this is a story with no bad-guy, where you don’t really know what to believe. Picoult handles the situation diplomatically – she is not interested in making the reader believe that miracles are possible or impossible – what she deals with is the way an ordinary family deals with an extraordinary situation. I was glued to this book from beginning to end, and read it for a second time almost immediately. Highly recommended!
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