Come Sunday: A Novel [Hardcover]

Isla Morley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 26, 2009

A wonderful new storyteller unleashes a soaring debut that sweeps from the hills of Hawaii to the veldt of South Africa.

 

Come Sunday is that joyous, special thing: a saga that captivates from the very first page, breaking our hearts while making our spirits soar.

 

Abbe Deighton is a woman who has lost her bearings. Once a child of the African plains, she is now settled in Hawaii, married to a minister, and waging her battles in a hallway of monotony. There is the leaky roof, the chafing expectations of her husband’s congregation, and the constant demands of motherhood. But in an instant, beginning with the skid of tires, Abbe’s battlefield is transformed when her three-year-old daughter is killed, triggering in Abbe a seismic grief that will cut a swath through the landscape of her life and her identity.

 

What an enthralling debut this is! What a storyteller we have here! As Isla Morley’s novel sweeps from the hills of Honolulu to the veldt of South Africa, we catch a hint of the spirit of Barbara Kingsolver and the mesmerizing truth of Jodi Picoult. We are reminded of how it felt, a while ago, to dive into the drama of The Thorn Birds.

 

Come Sunday is a novel about searching for a true homeland, family bonds torn asunder, and the unearthing of decades-old secrets. It is a novel to celebrate, and Isla Morley is a writer to love.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her poignant first novel, former South African magazine editor Morley explores a mother's grief. Abbe Deighton, part-time journalist and full-time wife and mother, finds herself living in Hawaii with her preacher husband, Greg, and precocious three-year-old daughter, Cleo, thousands of miles from her South African birthplace. Her flight from an abusive father and complicit mother is not accidental—her poet brother also fled to America—and when Cleo is killed in a car accident, Abbe re-examines the choices that have brought her so far from home. She and her husband become estranged as he turns to God and forgives the man who killed their daughter while Abbe descends into self-pity and anger at the unfairness of life. Their marriage suffers and Greg loses his job, forcing Abbe to turn homeward for financial help. Upon returning to South Africa, she confronts the ghosts of her family's past and the reality of her homeland's future. Morley convincingly depicts a grief-stricken woman without resorting to clichés, and though she telegraphs the resolution of Abbe's plight early on, the storytelling, line by line, is rather beautiful. (June)
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From Booklist

*Starred Review* There are no strategies, no magic words of wisdom that can help a mother cope with the death of her only child, as Abbe so woefully discovers when her three-year-old daughter, Cleo, is killed by a hit-and-run driver. Deluged by grief, Abbe retreats into an angry, cynical world, irrevocably alienating her husband, Greg, an ineffectual minister of a waning congregation in one of Honolulu's poorer neighborhoods. As her marriage dissolves and her misery deepens, Abbe's isolation causes her to reflect on her own tumultuous childhood in South Africa, her parents' violently abusive marriage, and the conflicts left unresolved by their ill-timed deaths. When given an opportunity to return to her homeland, Abbe is forced to confront painful truths about her past and make essential decisions about her future. While stories of parents coping with the tragic death of a child are not new, first-time novelist Morley brings a pathos palpable in its authenticity and a maturity arresting in its conviction. Firmly establishing her in the pantheon of such insightful authors as Chris Bohjalian, Sue Miller, and Anita Shreve, Morley's poignant, read-in-one-sitting tale of loss and renewal will haunt readers. --Carol Haggas

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (May 26, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374126879
• ISBN-13: 978-0374126872
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,479,101 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Isla Morley grew up in South Africa during apartheid, the child of a British father and fourth-generation South African mother. During the country's State of Emergency, she graduated from Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in Port Elizabeth with a degree in English Literature. By 1994 she was one of the youngest magazine editors in South Africa, but left career, country and kin when she married an American and moved to California. For more than a decade she pursued a career in non-profit work, focusing on the needs of women and children.
She has lived in some of the most culturally diverse places of the world, including Johannesburg, London and Honolulu. Now in the Los Angeles area, she shares a home with her husband, daughter, two cats, a dog and a tortoise.
"Come Sunday," her debut novel, was a finalist for the Commonwealth Prize.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Make Sure You Have A Box of Kleenex Close By, April 9, 2009

By 

Busy Mom (Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Come Sunday: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

When I picked this book to read, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. I definitely did not expect the book to pull at my heart strings like it did. This is a heart-breaking tale of a mother's grief.

Born and raised in Africa, Abbe finds herself married to a minister, who is the opposite of her violent father. Her husband was a minister and very laid-back in comparison, perhaps too laid-back, as the beginning of the book suggests. They're in Hawaii and their little girl Cleo was three years old and very energetic. As any mother knows, raising kids can be mentally and physically exhausting. Then tragedy strikes. A mother wonders if she is still a mother if her child is no longer there.

This book will haunt your dreams at night like it did mine, so don't read it before bed. It is very vivid and descriptive of a mother's grief. Not only did Abbe grieve for her daughter, she also grieved for her mother. In flashbacks, she tells of the abuse her father put on her mother while she was growing up and how she was trying to find meaning of her mother ... trying to reconnect with her mother again even though her mother is long dead. Eventually, Abbe returns to Africa to confront her memories and perhaps put the ghosts to rest.

It is well-written ... and very heart-breaking. I gave it a four star because I cannot "love" a book like this because it stirs up too many emotions. Would I recommend it? Yes, because it is definitely good fodder for book club discussions, and for discussions among friends. Would I read it again? Probably not because it was just too intense and it's not something I even want to contemplate let alone read again. It is not just a book about grief, but finding onself again through the darkness only to find the sun has been shining all along ... one just has to find it. It is a book about forgiveness and grace, and all the things a person must find on their own even in the midst of life's tragedies.

This is a book about life and death; about the resurrection of the spirit long after it thinks it has given up.

4//9/09

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Mazes Past and Present, May 20, 2009

By 

Zoeeagleeye (Belfast, ME United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Come Sunday: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

"Come Sunday" is not a book with a straight-forward plot. It is, rather, more like a maze that takes the reader round and round the present and snakes back into the past. Abbe, the protagonist, is obsessed with the accidental death of her little girl, Cleo. That is the door to the maze.

Isla Morley writes well and feelingly, leading the reader deeper and deeper into the tangled web of her family. She gives us insights into family relationships as well as the hidden currents beneath the surface.

For me, the book was sometimes too ordinary in an effort to show the ordinary life of Abbe and Greg. Africa doesn't come into the picture until the book is 3/4's finished. Sometimes the book is crisp and at other times it becomes a besotted soap opera in love with stubbornness, unkindness and self-pity. The side characters are interesting, though, and if you like the emotional turmoil of a woman who thinks too much, and yet not nearly enough, you will like "Come Sunday."

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Slow to unfold, but tugs on your heart..., March 30, 2009

By 

R Schmidt (Honolulu, HI USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Come Sunday: A Novel (Hardcover)

(What's this?)

Author Isla Morley weaves together a tale of grief and geography, heroism and history, and sin and survival in Come Sunday. Abbe Deighton is a writer, mother, and wife of a minister, Greg, in Honolulu. She loses her little girl, Cleo in a tragic accident. Abbe dissolves into grief, blaming anyone and everyone for their role in Cleo's loss.

This is the first 100+ pages. This constant grieving is a lot to ask the reader to wade through, not that it is unrealistic (I'm sure it isn't for many mothers and fathers), but that there are only so many ways to state that Abbe is unhappy, that she wakes up unhappy, that everything reminds her of Cleo, and that her daily ablutions suffer under the constant bombardment of this grief.

It was enough to seriously consider just giving up on the rest of the novel.

And I'm glad I didn't.

Abbe is a complicated person. She grew up in South Africa, under apartheid, with a seriously abusive father, a battered mother, a famous poet brother, and a secretive domestic aide named Beauty Masinama. I say Beauty was secretive in the sense that she was a 'sangoma', or witch doctor, so she knew the rituals and formulas that are part and parcel of her trade. But when Abbe escaped her father, she left all that behind.

She thought.

Morley skillfully crafts a tale that connects lives halfway across the planet, meshing Abbe's sophistication with ancient traditions. When Abbe is put to the test, there are times she fails, miserably and terribly, but Abbe rises to the task in other occasions. Isn't that human of her?

There was an unevenness in how Morley characterized Hawaii and South Africa. Being more familiar with Honolulu myself, I expected to recognize places and "characters." Was it me, or was there greater detail and color when Morley described Abbe's adventures in South Africa? Did the intensity of Abbe's grief dilute any need to develop Honolulu more as a place?

This is a book about grief and healing, but it is more than that. We are all tested in our lives. How do we react when we are found wanting? How do we divvy blame? How do we connect the life dots that surround us?

Stick with this book, and you won't be disappointed.