In the Hope of Rising Again

Rating:
Summary: A Promising First Novel
Review: I'll dispense with the summary of the novel (others have done it justice) and proceed with my impressions. I tend to put fiction works into one of three categories.

There are the greats, the classics. In southern literature, these are typified by the works of William Faulkner and his modern comparable, Cormac McCarthy. These works pierce the heart of human experience and transcend time by painting unforgettable pictures of real people failing and thriving in the face of real hardship. But it is the insights into the soul of humanity that divide the reader's mind distinctly between the time before and after absorbing the works of these masters.

A step down, but only barely, we find authors like John Irving, who offer us brilliant characters in the midst of more plot-driven stories. The prose is more accessible, but not necessarily more pedestrian. We come away from these works as emotionally impacted as entertained. Readers will know of these authors long after they have expired.

And then there's everything else - the works of the Kings, the Grishams, the Clancys, the Koontz, and on and on. Their books are amusement first, literature second. The plot drives the language and the pace. While there is a place for these works in the world of fiction, they are fleeting. There is no point in rereading, for there are countless others to digest. Reading these books is like going to the movies.

So where does Miss Scully's novel fit into this admittedly simplified literary heirarchy? I can confidently say that "In the Hope of Rising Again" is safely exempted from membership in the latter category. Its prose is too pretty, and its characters are too real. The story gives way to the personalities that are revealed skillfully with grace and subtlety. But is it a classic?

It's too soon to tell. I have only recently closed the book without a bookmark, and the impact has yet to fully sink in. My suspicion, however, is that it will not surpass the mark. But this is no cause for concern. That Scully's work is firmly installed alongside the likes of the creator of Owen Meaney is an admirable achievement. That it is the first novel of woman still in her twenties is enviable and enticing at the same time. I have high hopes for her maturity and anxiously await her next offering.

Rating:
Summary: An ambitious, though slightly uneven debut
Review: Regina Riant is the apple of her father's eye. Colonel Riant is a Civil War hero (whose war record grows more impressive as time goes by) and a prominent Mobile, Alabama businessman and philanthropist. He treasures his only daughter and indulges her every wish, teaching her to read and ride a bike, taking her out of school for shopping and adventures. Her father's death is but the first in a series of tragedies that come to define Regina's life in this ambitious, if slightly uneven, debut novel by Helen Scully.

As with many Southern Gothic novels, IN THE HOPE OF RISING AGAIN is filled with quirky, larger-than-life characters. In addition to Colonel Riant himself, there's the mysterious Ahlong, the MIT student who is the subject of Regina's first passionate (if somewhat unlikely) romance. There are Regina's four older bachelor brothers, dilettantes who squander the family fortune on harebrained schemes and ill-advised "improvements" to the family home. There's the acerbic Mother Riant (whose given name is also Regina), a formidable presence who rules her sons' lives by imposing endless rules and assigning mindless errands. And then there's Charles, Regina's husband, who grows increasingly unbalanced as he is unable to cope with the tragedies that Regina meets with aplomb.

Two calming influences enable Regina to deal with her family's unpredictable fortunes: her devout Catholicism and her remarkably egalitarian friendship with her black maid, Camilla. Camilla is full of common sense and skepticism about this wealthy family --- although she laughs about Regina behind her back, she also develops a genuine fondness and respect for the woman, especially once Regina becomes a mother herself. Camilla reflects, "Every girl baby needs two mothers, a black one and a white one.... Motherhood is one place where love is free, and the only place between black and white where free things got thrown back and forth in equal amounts."

The introduction of promising, likeable characters like Camilla and Colonel Riant doesn't always hold up as the novel progresses, though --- even Regina's character seems increasingly stiff and flat as time goes on. The plot can also seem like little more than a series of tragedies --- personal, emotional and financial --- that can bog down the reader as much as they torment these unfortunate characters. The unlikely resolution also does little to make the novel seem realistic and multi-dimensional. Despite these weaknesses, though, first-time novelist Scully's prose shows promise, and there are bright spots, such as the moving scene in which Regina, torn by grief, finds solace in preparing a meal alongside Camilla in the servants' kitchen.

Time moves forward quickly and somewhat unevenly in this novel --- with a span that covers the Civil War to the Great Depression, whole years and decades are sometimes lost in the intervals between chapters. Rather than explicitly giving the date, the author gives the reader well placed hints that mark the narrative's passing years. As time passes steadily forward (and sometimes backward), the result is an impressionistic portrait of an early twentieth century Southern woman --- and, by extension, of the South itself.

--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl

Rating:
Summary: The long awakening of a Southern Belle
Review: The heroine of Helen Scully's impressive debut is a conventional daughter of the aristocratic South who possesses a quiet strength, held mostly in reserve. The novel opens with Regina Riant's marriage to Charles Morrow in 1919, after her beloved father's death, and the couple's temporary removal from Mobile, Alabama, to rural Choctaw Bluff, 80 miles away, so that Charles can liquidate some of his lumber business to build them a house in Mobile.

The isolation and boredom soon take their toll on Regina. She craves attention from Charles, but he's increasingly preoccupied, though he tells her nothing, saying only, " `Things might take longer than I originally thought.' ...She had heard him say this so many mornings, her worry evolved into a silent panic she tried to ignore, though not always with success."

Then pregnancy gives her an excuse to send for Camilla, her black maid, who has been with the family for years. With Camilla, as with no one else, she can share her discontent, as well as the long, empty hours.

These first chapters establish Regina as a woman of her time and place. Very much aware of what is expected of her, she presents a confident, cheerful demeanor to her new husband, repressing any doubts. And as the years pass, Regina remains faithful to this ideal and convention of womanhood, a pose that both sustains and hinders her. It gives her a face to present to the world in times of tragedy or embarrassment or consternation, and it leaves her utterly unprepared for her family's financial reversals or her husband's desperation.

As Regina finally escapes back to Mobile (leaving Camilla behind to close up the cabin), the novel drops back in time, to the recent past; her father's long decline, and her own first crucial choice as an adult.

Her father, though he had served as a lieutenant in the Civil War, is known as the Colonel, a mark of respect in a place where the glory of the Confederacy is revered without question. Grown wealthy as owner of the city's daily newspaper, he dotes on his only daughter, his gracious paternalism extending like an umbrella over the family and even the servants.

As Camilla reflects: "There were good whites and there were bad whites." She recalls how the Colonel sent flowers to her daughters' weddings and paid for her doctor visits and her eyeglasses. And: "Regina and her brothers stood in the sun all dressed in black outside the funeral of her mother, Amelia, to hug and kiss her cheek as she left the church."

Regina's mother upholds the family standards. "According to Mother Riant, there was to be no returning to the house at unseemly hours, no throat clearing, no voice raising, no sitting while a woman stood. There was to be no lending or borrowing, no bad breath, betting or blaspheming, no smoking in the dining room or front porch, no adjusting clothes in public, no eating while in motion. No detail of graciousness went overlooked, no chance at attentiveness went unseized, no than-you notes unwritten, no funeral flowers unsent."

From the first page you can feel the sweat beading on your brow, smell the Sunday ham, and embrace the safety of bedrock conventions. So while it may not be surprising that Regina's first love is a Chinese boy who blithely breaks all of Mother Riant's rules (perhaps is not even aware of them), it's completely unexpected when their whirlwind courtship and betrothal is enthusiastically embraced by all her family. And all are dismayed when she breaks off her marriage plans to stay home and nurse her father after a fall, thereby changing the course of her life.

Women's dependency upon men is a major theme. Because Ahlong won't wait, Regina marries a man of her own kind who finds the burden of patriarchy too great. Her four brothers may be feckless wastrels, but they don't have to account to her - or even their declining and terrified mother - for what they do with the Riant money.

This is a novel about loss - the decline of a long-established way of life as the 20th century advances into speeding automobiles and electric washing machines and devastating Depression. For Regina, starting out so full of exuberance and love and serenity, life is a whittling away of possibilities. Each loss forces her to rely a little more heavily on herself, a habit Camilla learned long ago, out of necessity, and a habit her brothers, inheritors of a proud tradition gone dissipated, never learn.

But this is not the sort of novel where the heroine rises to the occasion, which is a bit surprising since Scully, only 26, was inspired by the life of her own great-grandmother. Regina is often infuriatingly immobile, moping on the front porch over her darning or spending weeks lost in books while tasks and calamities mount. But this makes her as real as a recalcitrant friend, and when she rouses herself to an effort, the disappointment of failure is all the more acute.

Scully's complex narrative explores nuances of race, family, culture, religion, and history that seem all the more stirring coming from such a young author. The structure, often moving up to an event, then dropping back to explore what came before, and shifting among points of view throughout, allows a multi-faceted exploration. The prose is graceful and evocative without being flashy, and while there are a few off notes (the interchangeable brothers, both appalling and comic, are sometimes overdone; Camilla, in her wisdom, occasionally steps into stereotype), this is an absorbing and moving novel.