Bethlehem Road
by Nancy Crowe
(Anaheim, CA: Odd Girls Press, 2002). 234 pp., $12.95
paper.
Reviewed by
Virginia Ramey Mollenkott.
[posted here 9-21-02. Reprinted with
permission.]
If Nancy Crowe is not already a member of EEWC. she
would make a most welcome addition. Her understanding of the Christian
virtues is similar to ours: for instance, she shows that it is not as
important whom you love as that you love, and that the loving is sincere
and mutually supportive. Her approach to Scripture is also similar: the
Bible can mean differently to members of various interpretive
communities, but context makes a huge difference, and anything
interpreted lovelessly leads to pain and suffering for everyone
concerned. Ordinary people can grasp basic biblical principles, and
life's anguish will teach them to any open-minded person who lives long
enough.
That all this theological sophistication is packaged
in a well-written first novel about a lesbian relationship, by a lesbian
author, and published by a lesbian feminist press, comes as a delightful
surprise. After all, the protagonist of Bethlehem Road is like
many lesbians who have encountered hypocrisy and hostility among
Christians. By the time Ruth has become comfortable in San Francisco's
social and political scene, she has made the rather typical decision
"never again to have anything to do with organized religion."
Like the reasoning of many lesbians. Ruth's goes beyond dislike of
individual hypocrisy to pinpoint a more corporate discontinuity:
"Maybe there were a few isolated places on the planet where you
could sing, in a room full of people, about God's love and know that
there would be no qualifiers or conditions tacked on down the line, but
she doubted it." It seems miraculous that knowing all this to be
true, Nancy Crowe could write such a spiritually reconciling novel, and
that Odd Girls Press would be able to recognize and promote its skillful
artistry.
The novel describes a clash of values symbolized by
the contrast between San Francisco and the tiny town of New Bethlehem,
Indiana. But the deeper contrast occurs between people who confuse
traditional culture with eternal verity and people whose life experience
has forced them to learn a more nuanced understanding of The Way Things
Are.
The characters' names (Ruth, Naomi, Dr. Boaz) and the
four sections of the novel (Sojourn. Gleaning. The Threshing Floor. The
Gate) ask us to read Bethlehem Road as a modern reworking of
the Book of Ruth, but there are significant departures from the ancient
short story. (For instance, it is not to Naomi, but to Dr. Belinda Boaz,
that Ruth utters the famous pledge, "Wherever you go. I will
go.") But Naomi is indeed bitter as she returns to her Indiana home
town ten years after leaving for San Francisco with her husband and two
daughters, one of whom had been the partner of Ruth; and like her
biblical namesake she undervalues Ruth's kindness in accompanying her on
the long drive. But the deepest similarity to the Old Testament
narrative is this: Bethlehem Road describes an outsider who
becomes an insider, not without hardship and some determined plotting
and planning. Along the way there is considerable help from the Rev. Jim
Foster, who knows that kindness counts and who enjoys preaching about
biblical imagery of God as female.
After living my life as an evangelical lesbian and a
liberation theologian, I can testify that Nancy Crowe has depicted
lesbian experience with great accuracy. Many of the lesbians I know
could tell stories that are similar to Ruth's experiences. For instance,
I smiled ruefully at Lula's refusal to believe that the women-friends in
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe were also lovers.
("This is a perfectly nice story," Lula declares at the local
book club discussion. "I just don't believe the author would put a
nasty thing like that in there.") Similarly, one of my colleagues
in interreligious dialogue resolutely refused to believe that Shug and
Celie were lovers in The Color Purpleeven when I pointed out to
her that in a subsequent novel, Walker depicted them as having lived
together for many years.
Never mind all that: as one finds out in Bethlehem
Road, people have their own reasons for refusing to see what they
are looking at. and also for hating those they hate. A high official at
my alma mater, fundamentalist Bob Jones University, once wrote that I am
a "devil" and suggested that "it would not be unfit to
pray for [mvl destruction." Nevertheless, I hope that the more
centrist Louisville Seminary is proud of its graduate Nancy Crowe for
embodying a liberating theological perspective in a readable, attractive
novel. It is every inch as good as Isobel Miller's lesbian classic Patience
and Sarah. And as a fan of Alice Walker, Dorothy Sayers, Iris
Murdoch, and Laurie R. King. I am always happy to find another woman who
writes good fiction with strongly theological overtones. Nancy Crowe,
here's hoping you have another novel in the works!
Reviewer Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. Ph.D.. taught
literature at the university level for 44 years, 30 of which were at
William Paterson University in Wayne, NJ
Reprinted from EEWC Update, Spring
(April-June). 2002 5
