Sufficient Grace

Amy Espeseth

Sufficient Grace
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Scribe Publications
Country
Australia
Published
22 August 2012
Pages
336
ISBN
9781922070029

Sufficient Grace

Amy Espeseth

Ruth and her cousin Naomi live in rural Failing, Wisconsin, part of a community of Pentecostal fundamentalists. While their families perceive constant danger in the outside world, they are blind to the destruction and devastation within their own circle. Struggling with a horrifying secret, Ruth escapes her own disturbing reality by taking refuge in the beauty of the natural world. The girls’ prayer for deliverance is answered, but only with more blood.

A story of lost innocence and the quest for absolution, Sufficient Grace reveals the tragedy that can result when family, faith and sin are inextricably bound together.

Review

Deep in the heart of rural Wisconsin, two small families eke out a harsh but simple living, dictated to both by the ancient rhythms of the land around them, as well as by their insular, deeply rooted faith. Ruth, her brother Reuben, and her cousins Samuel and the adopted Naomi make up the four focal points of this novel, each of them uneasily coming of age in a community closed off from much of the outside world.

Now a resident of Melbourne, Amy Espeseth was herself raised within a fundamentalist Pentecostal family in rural America. And while it would be altogether too simplistic to make a sweeping statement about autobiography here, it’s undeniable that this time has been fictively brought to the surface with Sufficient Grace. Far from being a crutch, as can sometimes be the case with debuts, Espeseth’s knowledge and eye for detail give the novel a beautiful authenticity and depth that is, from the start, mesmerising and very real.

It is the telling here that is truly to be savoured. Like Daniel Woodrell’s thick-mouthed Ozarks parlance, Espeseth inhabits every inch of her blasted, biblical snow-covered world. Ruth’s voice, while dense, pitches and yaws with the heart-quickening cadence of her holy knowledge, and with the brutal poetry of her own surrounds:

‘The sins are on both sides… For every buck deer that breaks a trail through the corn and eats half an ear off of each stalk, there is one of our neighbours crouching in a stand, high up in a tree, aiming to shoot it dead.’

Equally, it is the two girls that form the dark emotional heart of this novel. Both are caught up in the wrongs and loves of previous generations, and both will bear the brunt of a much more sinister violence within their own family, as well as its devastating denouement. A thankfully unafraid and resonant debut.


Jessica Au is the editor of the

This item is not currently in-stock. It can be ordered online and is expected to ship in 3-5 days

Our stock data is updated periodically, and availability may change throughout the day for in-demand items. Please call the relevant shop for the most current stock information. Prices are subject to change without notice.

Sign in or become a Readings Member to add this title to a wishlist.