Our June Front Porch Book Club Pick is 'Revival Season'
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Pull up a seat as we dive in to one book each month with the Country Living Front Porch Book Club, capping each month with a chat with the authors themselves. Our June 2021 selection is author Monica West's "Revival Season"!
"We rumbled toward Georgia from the west," 15-year-old Miriam tells us at the opening of Revival Season. A direction of strength, power, and greatness, westward is also the direction of home for Miriam and her family: her father, a famous Baptist preacher; her calming, confiding mother; a brother Miriam yearns to be closer with; and a younger sister with cerebral palsy to whom Miriam is lovingly devoted. The family has packed into their van to travel a circuit around the South as part of the summer revival season, when Miriam's father, Reverend Horton, preaches to gathered masses and lays healing hands on the afflicted, a sacred power, her father notes, that only men can wield.
And yet, underneath the soothing calmness with which Miriam's mother bathes the family, a sharper, more violent undertone rises to the surface over the course of this summer. Last year's revival season was branded in Miriam's mind by a single event she'd witnessed, but that was all it was: one moment, never to be repeated. Surely this year would be different. "I couldn't wait to get to the revival tent—to see its majestic colors and watch Papa redeem himself from last summer's scandal the way I'd been praying that he would." Though she witnessed his sin, Miriam does not lose faith in her father. In fact, she, like all children, innocently awaits the restoration of her parent to his former place of glory.
But it's not meant to be. After a man accuses Reverend Horton of being a fraud, the Reverend's anger erupts once again. The crowd partly obscures the scene, but there is no mistaking the blood on her father's hands. "I will never hurt you," her father stresses to Miriam afterward. But the spell is broken and innocence gone, a bubble of fragile youth and trust burst in a moment of violence.
What unfolds after, as the family treks through the sweltering heat and stifling memories of that night toward their home in Texas, is a different revival season, a revival of female strength and assuredness, a resuscitation of curiosity and bravery in the face of violence and control. Monica West writes with a beauty and respect for the community and faith Miriam inhabits, showing us a young girl on the precipice of adulthood grappling with the surging violence of a man who's built his life on the idea of his power, only to be striped of it when he falters. In the absence, he seeks out power in another form, an outlet for pain and confusion that he increasingly wields on the women of his family.
And then, just when you think you know where Revival Season is heading, Monica turns the premise on its head. Unable to find urgently needed help for a sick friend, Miriam cradles the girl in her arms—and heals her. The act surprises Miriam just as much as anyone else (after all, healing is a power reserved only for men, or so her father says), but curiosity, a desire to help those in need, and a dash of teenage defiance leads Miriam to heal others in the coming months, and as her power grows, her father's diminishes, his violence filling its wake.
Rather than see Miriam's gift as a sign that God had doubly blessed the family and equipped them to help others, Miriam recognizes the threat she has become. "Anything I did to discredit him would disrupt the delicate ecosystem of our church, throwing everything that the Lord had established, and Papa had built, into chaos."
But as a new revival season approaches, Miriam's desperation for her secret ability to be known and to be seen for her whole and true self by those she loves grows, so she attempts to carry out a questionable plan of her own making. The final chapters race to a conclusion, ending all too soon. Like us, you're bound to be caught by Monica West's insightful, caring prose, eager to see what her heroine does next.
COUNTRY LIVING FRONT PORCH BOOK CLUB SELECTION FOR JUNE 2021
Selection: Revival Season by Monica West (available via local bookstores, Amazon, or Bookshop)
Start reading with us now.
Tune in to Country Living's Instagram as Monica answers your questions and chats live with us about Revival Season on June 29 at 12 noon EST.
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