gods With a little g, book review

gods With a little g

by Tupelo Hassman

book review

No one does hopeless teenagers quite like Tupelo Hassman. And, god with a little g is chock full of gloom. Rosary is a dead-end town inhabited by a majority of Thumpers, folks who beat you over the head with the Bible to prove a point. The symbolism here could be cloying if the book was not so damn great. The prose, people, the prose. I could have finished the 356-page book in one night but I kept it for over a month and had the library renew it because I wanted to linger with it, with the feeling—remembering what it was like to grow up, to change from a senseless teenager into a senseless adult. Nothing makes sense—at least since Helen’s mother died of cancer. She spends her time, endless hours, down at Fast Eddy’s tire yard while dark clouds gather above the refinery—Rosary’s polluting industry.

There’s the sex—both real love and animal craving. And, the variants, the in between. You see, despite all the sanctimonious speechifying the town is pretty much going to Hell in a handbag. There is so much misery they could bottle it up and sell it except no one had much ambition—save for Aunt Bev who runs a Palm Reading salon. That predictably gets torched by the Thumpers. But, with this story there is no assurance—I was never sure where the story was going.

There’s the tension—both sexual and lethal. You want the characters to be safe, but there is no sanctuary in Rosary. All the vices are on display. (Can you say, incest?) That all the stuff that seems taboo becomes the gold standard and everything else is out-of-step.

The book is broken into sections separated by “lost” posters that refer to moments in Helen’s life ie losing her cat, losing her virginity, losing her best friend, her dad—lost after the death of her mother. Lost dreams. Hassman has a lyrical way of weaving together ideas that create emotional bombs. Another reason I was afraid to turn the pages, I’d get my head or heart ripped out.

If you liked The Secret Life of Bees, then this book and its protagonist will appeal. If you like To Kill a Mockingbird with its small-town Maycomb secrecy and dysfunctionality, then gods with a little g will make your skin crawl.

Spoiler Alert: fundamentalist religion does not come out looking like a winner in this novel.