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osprey_archer) wrote2022-07-29 08:36 am
osprey_archer) wrote2022-07-29 08:36 am
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Book Review: The Search
I knew going in that Michelle Huneven’s The Search is a novel in the form of a memoir, but nonetheless it sucked me in so thoroughly that after I finished I was astonished to realize that the author’s name was not Dana, like the narrator’s.
The book is about a Unitarian Universalist search committee for a new minister, which may sound dry, but in fact I grew so frantically invested that I raced to the end, metaphorically gasping for breath.
Dana joins the search committee with an ulterior motive: she’s hoping it will prove an interesting subject for her next memoir. At first she’s doubtful however. The eight committee members seem all conviviality, so is there really enough material for a book?
However, just below the surface lie a number of potential fissures, including “Do we want our new minister to believe in God?” Many of the committee members are against it, to the alarm of young Curtis, who recently left his Evangelical church for UUs, drawn by the UUs enthusiastic embrace of queerness. He enjoys the more accepting climate, but is alienated by the UU’s rejection of the idea of a personal God.
In general the book does an amazing job exploring the tension between the UU’s mission to be accepting and tolerant, and the very human fact that in any group of people there are going to be certain things that simply fall beyond the pale - and in the UU church, one of those things is Being Too Christian. You can have any kind of communion except the traditional one.
However, the most important divide turns out to be between the old guard, including Dana and two older women in the church, and the young upstarts, led by Jennie. Jennie is one of those people so convinced of her own leftist enlightenment that she believes anyone who doesn’t agree with her opinions in every jot and tittle must be driven by secret bigotry. This effectively blinds her to her own prejudices: she genuinely cannot see, for instance, that it’s discriminatory to reflexively dismiss any candidate over the age of sixty.
She does get scolded about this by other (older) members of the committee, but basically they let it slide. (The UUs are on principle against discrimination, but in practice the human mind cannot be equally against all forms of discrimination at the same time.) It’s fascinating to me how much of what goes wrong in the committee arises from little things that were let to slide.
As it turns out, Jennie also joined the search committee with an ulterior motive: not only does she want to ensure that the next minister is young, female, and preferably a woman of color, but she has a specific candidate in mind. She’s too canny to admit this outright, of course, as the committee members are explicitly instructed to keep their mind open to all candidates, but she never takes her eyes off the prize.
Dana realizes, just a little too late, that Jennie’s candidate has some important defects (most of which can be summed up by the fact that she greets her new congregation as “Arroyo!” when they call themselves AUUCC, pronounced “Awk”). The reader sees this too, and tension mounts as we follow Dana’s last-ditch campaign to block Jennie’s candidate and secure a stronger minister for their church.
But it’s too little, too late. With a deft hand at manipulating group relations and a willingness to dig in her heels till the rest of the committee votes her way just to get the meeting over with, Jennie gets her candidate through.
This book is an object lesson in the fact that the stakes of your book only matter as much as how much your characters care about the stakes. Although she joined the committee with an eye toward gathering material for her book, Dana comes to care passionately, and by the end the reader cares passionately too. By the final vote, the reader is as breathlessly fascinated as if we’re watching a shoot-out at high noon.
The book is about a Unitarian Universalist search committee for a new minister, which may sound dry, but in fact I grew so frantically invested that I raced to the end, metaphorically gasping for breath.
Dana joins the search committee with an ulterior motive: she’s hoping it will prove an interesting subject for her next memoir. At first she’s doubtful however. The eight committee members seem all conviviality, so is there really enough material for a book?
However, just below the surface lie a number of potential fissures, including “Do we want our new minister to believe in God?” Many of the committee members are against it, to the alarm of young Curtis, who recently left his Evangelical church for UUs, drawn by the UUs enthusiastic embrace of queerness. He enjoys the more accepting climate, but is alienated by the UU’s rejection of the idea of a personal God.
In general the book does an amazing job exploring the tension between the UU’s mission to be accepting and tolerant, and the very human fact that in any group of people there are going to be certain things that simply fall beyond the pale - and in the UU church, one of those things is Being Too Christian. You can have any kind of communion except the traditional one.
However, the most important divide turns out to be between the old guard, including Dana and two older women in the church, and the young upstarts, led by Jennie. Jennie is one of those people so convinced of her own leftist enlightenment that she believes anyone who doesn’t agree with her opinions in every jot and tittle must be driven by secret bigotry. This effectively blinds her to her own prejudices: she genuinely cannot see, for instance, that it’s discriminatory to reflexively dismiss any candidate over the age of sixty.
She does get scolded about this by other (older) members of the committee, but basically they let it slide. (The UUs are on principle against discrimination, but in practice the human mind cannot be equally against all forms of discrimination at the same time.) It’s fascinating to me how much of what goes wrong in the committee arises from little things that were let to slide.
As it turns out, Jennie also joined the search committee with an ulterior motive: not only does she want to ensure that the next minister is young, female, and preferably a woman of color, but she has a specific candidate in mind. She’s too canny to admit this outright, of course, as the committee members are explicitly instructed to keep their mind open to all candidates, but she never takes her eyes off the prize.
Dana realizes, just a little too late, that Jennie’s candidate has some important defects (most of which can be summed up by the fact that she greets her new congregation as “Arroyo!” when they call themselves AUUCC, pronounced “Awk”). The reader sees this too, and tension mounts as we follow Dana’s last-ditch campaign to block Jennie’s candidate and secure a stronger minister for their church.
But it’s too little, too late. With a deft hand at manipulating group relations and a willingness to dig in her heels till the rest of the committee votes her way just to get the meeting over with, Jennie gets her candidate through.
This book is an object lesson in the fact that the stakes of your book only matter as much as how much your characters care about the stakes. Although she joined the committee with an eye toward gathering material for her book, Dana comes to care passionately, and by the end the reader cares passionately too. By the final vote, the reader is as breathlessly fascinated as if we’re watching a shoot-out at high noon.
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I'm really interested in this one because I'm UU (though am currently not very engaged with the faith these days), and have seen some of these dynamics playing out around me.
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