Book Review: Her Mother's Hope

Francine Rivers' novels have typically been good reads in my life. The first one I read was "The Last Sin Eater," which had me completely engrossed and brought new insights on the topic of atonement.  "The Atonement Child" similarly tackled difficult themes, particularly that of abortion. Unlike most Christian novel writers, whose writing I find preachy or contrived, I have thought Francine Rivers did a pretty nice job of taking the reader into a world that was nearly as gritty and "real" as our own.

This weekend I read "Her Mother's Hope," the latest of Rivers' books, and the first of a two-part series. Rivers did not disappoint.  The multi-generational story, inspired by Rivers' own journey to understand the generations of women in her own family, focuses on mother-daughter relationships, abuse, expectations how they affect the life of a child, hardship, personality differences and hopes. I found the story engaging on its own merits, and at the same time, it clicked with some family dynamics I've seen in my own extended family.  Hmmm.  That will keep a reader reading!

This first book centers on the stories of two women, Marta and her daughter Hildemara.  Marta, an emigrant from Switzerland, is a sturdy and commanding woman whose feistiness and independence both brings and loses her what she dreams of having.  Her daughter Hildemara has her own dreams, more gently pursued but just as deeply rooted as her mothers'.  There is a huge rift between the mother and daughter, understandable to the reader looking on but not to the two women.  And there are no easy answers.  No easy answers to their mismatch, no easy answers to the abuse, no easy answers to the differences they each experience with their husbands. While there's a thread of faith running through the lives of the two characters, their faith is not the sweetsy answer to deeply ingrained problems with the family dynamics.

In other words, the story mirrors the things that happen in our lives, in real people's lives.

I found it amusing to read some of the book reviews at amazon.com.  Some readers complained, "Why can't they see the problem and fix it?" "It was depressing."  "The story lost me."  Well, honey-chile, that's how real life is. You don't wrap up problematic family dynamics in a sweet godly fix so easily and tie a Hallelujah bow on it, dusting off your hands with satisfaction and declaring, "Done!"  Sadly, as you can predict with these two characters, there are many children, parents and grandparents--and us, too--who go to their graves with unresolved issues, having only the grace of God upon which to rely, because no amount of prayer or their best effort has seemed to mend heartbreaking rifts in their family relationships.  It is a grief of this world.  And based on Francine Rivers' notes at the end of this first book, I suspect the rift in her family was also unresolved at the end of her grandmother's and mother's lives. At least, I hope she'll keep it real with the characters in this book.

So if you're looking for a happy-happy joy-joy type of story, go for one of the other Christian novelists who neatly solves all the problems by the last page.  But if you're looking for realistic characters with knotty problems and situations that will make you think about yourself and your own family and intergenerational dynamics, you might want to pick up this book ... and then wait for the sequel to appear this September.