‘Girl’ asks tough questions
“The Girl Who Slept with God” juxtaposes the visceral details of everyday life with the more contemplative life of the mind
and spirit.
At first glance, “The Girl Who Slept with God” by Val Brelinski has all the trappings of a classic coming-of-age story: boys, periods and the realization that your parents aren’t perfect. But there is more to this debut novel, set in rural Idaho in 1970, than youthful rebellion.
Jory, the main character, and her older sister, Grace, live with their parents and younger sister in an insular, highly religious household. The family’s home life is thrown into turmoil when Grace goes on a mission trip to Mexico and comes back pregnant. What’s more, she is convinced she’s having God’s child. Jory’s embarrassed parents attempt to control the situation by sending both Jory and Grace to live at an isolated farmhouse where Grace can “recover” and Jory can look after her.
Ironically, their exile leads to unexpected freedom. Jory starts attending public school, sneaking out to parties and drinking with her new friends. The most important figure in Jory’s post-exile life is Grip, a 20-something ice-cream-truck driver with the uncanny ability to appear when she needs him most. The two recognize each other’s loneliness and become fast friends. Grip teaches Jory how to swim, encourages Grace to learn about religions outside of her own and takes them both to a hippie commune on Halloween.
But Jory’s father, an astronomy professor and respected member of an evangelical church, remains a potent force in their lives as well. Rarely do Jory’s exploits go unnoticed by her father, who is fearful of Grip’s influence over both his daughters. As the story progresses, Jory’s parents cling to their seemingly impossible moral standards, even as the protective walls they’ve built around their family begin to crumble.
“The Girl Who Slept with God” juxtaposes the visceral details of everyday life with the more contemplative life of the mind and spirit. Like the novel’s stark but beautiful landscape, Brelinski’s prose is rich without being flowery.
In one passage, Jory remembers her father buying her ice cream after she got stitches: “He fed her one spoonful after another while he explained how scar tissue formed. How even the stars healed themselves. He had been wearing a tie with small green ducks on it.” There are many instances like this in which the ordinary and the extraordinary merge. The sound of an approaching ice-cream truck becomes suddenly mysterious. A pair of highly coveted moccasins evokes images of Pocahontas and Sacagawea. In much the same way a high school gymnasium is transformed for a school dance, Brelinski works wonders with everyday minutia.
Most importantly, “The Girl Who Slept with God” asks tough questions. Brelinski allows her characters to make mistakes and to pay for them. Jory and her sister confront the world outside their family bubble not in manageable pieces, but in huge gulps. They find themselves in situations where they must negotiate the gaps left by their sheltered childhood and determine where their individual loyalties lie. In the end, this striking, quirky and ultimately haunting debut raises questions about the nature of faith and the principles we should uphold when faced with difficult decisions.