Beginning ~ on a Sunday morning

"As a minister I rarely found the entirety of a Sunday service depressing.  But some mornings disease and despair seemed to permeate the congregation like floodwaters in sandbags, and the only people who stood during the moment when we shared our joys and concerns were those souls who were intimately acquainted with nursing homes, ICUs, and the nearby hospice."

Secrets of Eden ~ by Chris Bohjalian, 2010, fiction (Vermont)

"There," says Alice Hayward to Reverend Stephen Drew, just after her baptism, and just before going home to the husband who will kill her that evening and then shoot himself.  Drew, tortured by the cryptic finality of that short utterance, feels his faith in God slipping away and is saved from despair only by a meeting with Heather Laurent, the author of wildly successful, inspirational books about ― angels.  Heather survived a childhood that culminated in her own parents' murder-suicide, so she identifies deeply with Alice’s daughter, Katie, offering herself as a mentor to the girl and a shoulder for Stephen ― who flees the pulpit to be with Heather and see if there is anything to be salvaged from the spiritual wreckage around him.  But then the State's Attorney begins to suspect that Alice's husband may not have killed himself ― and finds out that Alice had secrets only her minister knew.

I've already read more than half of this book ― 200 pages of the 378, which include the Reading Group Guide.  I've read enough to discover the book is divided into four parts, following the story from the viewpoints of four different people:  the minister, the deputy state's attorney (according to page 7), the author of those books about angels, and the daughter.  I'm only into part two, the attorney's viewpoint, but the book is pulling me along as I see things from different perspectives.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays. Click here for today's Linky.