In 1899, while clearing bush on his poor New Zealand farm, William McQuiggan experiences an epiphany. Shortly thereafter, he leaves his young Australian wife Myra and newborn twins and travels to America in search of God. Belief is the story of William's journey and his marriage to Myra, who follows him from Auckland to Salt Lake City, Utah, and Zion City, Illinois. With each leg of the journey, the family grows until William is the reluctant father of six. During their travels, Myra comes up against her husband's religious zealotry and his slow but inevitable mental disintegration. Spanning 17 years, three countries, and three religions, Belief heralds the US debut of a remarkable writer with a vivid evocation of a bygone way of life.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
The darker side of belief permeates this American debut by New Zealander Johnson, who chronicles a life of spiritual pilgrimage driven by mental instability in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. William McQuiggan's physical abuse as a child has left him a bitter alcoholic unable to accept responsibility for his actions. He ekes out a poverty-stricken existence in rural New Zealand with his wife, Myra, the orphaned daughter of a rigid Australian minister. Martyr-like, Myra endures William's physical, sexual and emotional abuse until the reader becomes numbed by her continuous suffering. The narrative of New Zealand life is peppered with vivid but unfamiliar regional terminology (a glossary would have been helpful for American readers). After a vision that was possibly whiskey-induced, William deserts Myra and their newborn twins to begin a search for God that takes him to America and involves him in three different religious movements. Johnson documents many of the attractions of Mormonism, the Jehovah's Witness movement and Dr. Alexander Dowie's Zion City, Ill., utopian community, but ultimately paints them all as fallible and deceptive. By the time William's family joins him in America, he has become completely mentally unhinged, even as Myra has grown tougher and more resilient. Johnson's writing is strong, her characterizations convincing, and the novel incorporates some fine subthemes about racial discrimination and family dynamics. However, the conclusion that faith is essentially a meaningless, empty exercise may fail to resonate with an American audience.
About the Author
Never before published in the US, Stephanie Johnson is an accomplished New Zealand writer whose work includes plays for stage and radio, poetry, scriptwriting, and novels. Her novel The Heart's Wild Surf was published by Vintage in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. She is co-founder of the Auckland Writers' Festival and the 2000 Katherine Mansfield Fellow.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
dark historical fiction,
This review is from: Belief: A Novel (Hardcover)
In late nineteenth century New Zealand, William McQuiggan, a victim of child abuse, strikes out at those who love him such as his wife Myra. William finds solace only in alcohol. However, while working in the hated fields, a drunken William sees a vision. He decides to go on a quest in search of God.William leaves behind his pregnant wife and journeys across the Pacific to Utah where he joins the Mormons. When he concludes that religion as bogus, he tries the Jehovah's Witnesses, but feels that movement is a sham. He next heads to Illinois to join Dr. Alexander Dowie's Zion City utopia before souring on that faction. While on his American adventure, his wife and twin children finally join him and soon more children follow. He becomes further unhinged until he returns home in a last ditch effort to reach God through his own church. Stephanie Johnson paints a dark work of historical fiction in that there is little hope beyond bleakness even for those who believe in God. The story line is vivid as it describes several locales, the era, and religions with clarity and depth. William is a wonderfully drawn character whose slow descent into a self-made hell makes BELIEF work though readers will tire of the abused Myra traipsing after her man. Harriet Klausner
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Despair and defeat,
By
This review is from: Belief: A Novel (Hardcover)
This novel, which takes place mainly in New Zealand and America, details the story of two characters who travel down self-destructive paths. William, after believing that God revealed Himself to him while on a drunken night on his farm, obsesses over finding God and embarks on a spiritual journey that eventually drains him of his sanity. Myra, William's wife, who despite the abuse she consistently suffers from her husband, always finds a way to love him again. The author takes you into the mind of each of the characters to know why they choose their paths as such, though readers may grow weary of the suffering that Myra and her children repeatedly have to go through with William. Although mostly depressing, the novel has its small bright moments with other characters who serve as friends to Myra.
As an American who has lived in New Zealand, I found the author's descriptions were able to paint a very detailed picture in my mind of what life was like in both of these places 100 years ago. Through occasional flashbacks, Stephanie Johnson creates a large detailed world geographically and chronologically.
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