The Divine Economy of Salvation [Hardcover]

Priscila Uppal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 26, 2002

When Sister Angela receives an anonymous package containing an ornate silver candlestick, an object she hasn't seen in twenty-five years, her safe and secure life begins to shatter. Suddenly, she must confront her darkest secret: her participation in a crime from which she can no longer hide. As she sets about discovering who sent her the package, memories of St. X. School for Girls come back to haunt her.

At the center is a group of girls who call themselves The Sisterhood, from whom fourteen-year-old Angela desperately seeks comfort and approval. Saddened by her mother's declining health and her father's abandonment, Angela looks up to the group's beautiful and alluring leader, Rachel. When she is encouraged by Rachel to play a joke on another student, the rituals of The Sisterhood take a violent turn. Now, from within the safe refuge of her convent and with the unexpected help of a young pregnant girl, Angela at last faces the truth-and the boundaries of faith.

In the tradition of The Secret History and Lying Awake, The Divine Economy of Salvation is a dark, powerful, and suspenseful story that captures the innocence and cruelty of adolescence and the mysteries of adulthood.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Although we all remember the small cruelties of our teenage years, Sister Angela has darker secrets than most. And when a heavy package lacking a return address is sent to her Ottawa convent, she knows without opening it what it will contain. In her languorously written novel, The Divine Economy of Salvation, Priscila Uppal explores the shadow worlds of guilt, fear, and atonement. For 25 years, Angela has been dreading exposure for her role in a hazing ritual that went horribly awry. Her need to hide adds another metaphoric layer to her choice to "take the veil." It is no irony, perhaps, that her adolescent clique at boarding school was called The Sisterhood, for Angela has only moved from one cloistered existence to another, a balanced equation in The Divine Economy of Salvation. The arrival of the package is followed by the appearance at the convent of Kim, a homeless pregnant girl, who is assigned to work with Angela. True redemption, in the terms of this excellent debut novel, requires more than a backward glance. --Regina Marler

From Publishers Weekly

A nun is haunted by the lurid death of a former classmate in this overwrought debut novel that's equal parts mystery and coming-of-age story. When Sister Angela receives a seemingly innocuous package containing a silver candlestick, it jolts her into a series of guilty flashbacks to her teenage days at St. X. School for Girls, a fancy Catholic boarding school in Ottawa, where she insinuated herself into a powerful clique of sex-obsessed girls called the Sisterhood. Events spun out of control when they invited a diligent classmate, Bella, to join their group on the condition that she lose her virginity. Bella's attempts to do so led to her grisly death. Angela has been haunted by the tragedy ever since, and she takes the arrival of the candlestick as a sign that she must finally reckon with her role in Bella's death. The crucible of the Catholic girls' school is always rich material, but Angela's schoolmates (who include a pretty, rich popular girl, a mousy hanger-on and other familiar characters) are underdeveloped, which is especially disappointing given the amount of space Uppal devotes to Angela's school days. Indeed, the mystery of who sent the candlestick loses its urgency amid all of the detailed flashbacks, and Uppal's resolution is simply absurd (even Angela herself seems not to want to dwell on it). Those who can't get enough of back-stabbing schoolgirl yarns might make it to the end, but, with the exception of the gruesome scene on which it hinges, the novel is unmemorable.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 416 pages
• Publisher: Algonquin Books; 1 edition (August 26, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1565123654
• ISBN-13: 978-1565123656
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.9 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,357,332 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Riveting...but ultimately disappointing, February 12, 2003

By 

M. Bandy (Champaign, IL USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Divine Economy of Salvation (Hardcover)

The jacket of this book compares it to William Golding's "Lord of the Flies", and that was reason enough for me to check it out. For the days following I was completely engrossed in The Divine Economy of Salvation, whining when I had to put it down to go to work and eagerly picking it up when I returned home. Sadly, while the book is indeed engrossing and memorable, it is also one of those novels which is ultimately ruined by an unsatisfying conclusion.

I absolutely agree with Louis's review below that says that the book ends too abruptly. Uppal does an admirable job of setting things up and drawing the reader into Sister Angela's world, but I think she needed to include maybe one more "minor" incident establishing character before the big (and incredibly violent) climactic scene.

In the last fifty pages or so of the novel, I felt like characters I knew well were behaving in ways that I couldn't *quite* believe them capable of. So just when I should have been most engrossed in the novel I was instead pulling back and saying, "Wait a second...there's no way they would do that." There's nothing worse than getting such a strong reminder that characters you've invested hundreds of pages in getting to know are not real people.

Even having said that, this is a really strong first novel, and Uppal does show a real gift at establishing mood and suspense. I'll definitely pick up her next book--I just feel like this one could really have used a little more polish.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A good title does not a good book make, March 26, 2003

By 

Catfish_Hunter (Oak Park, Il) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Divine Economy of Salvation (Hardcover)

Sigh. This book falls into the same category as "The Lake of Dead Languages" in a couple ways--A. An interesting, somewhat obscure title, B. dark doings at an all-girls' school. Unfortunately, they also share in my ultimate disdain. Uppal's tale of pain and betrayal shows a lot of promise at the start that it fails miserably to deliver. The first third is actually pretty good (hence, even a single star), but starting with Angela's sister's admittance of hatred for her (huh? what happened here? We're presented with a character with an interesting set of issues who then disappears from the book without any indication as to why she reacts to Angela the way she does!) the story starts to unravel into a somewhat well-written mess. After what turns out to be a book-long red herring, the whole mystery of the candlestick never actually resolves; the ending, as others here have noted, is enough to give a person whiplash. Finally, on another subject altogether, I was amazed at how a story that takes place in a religious setting could be so Godless. Angela it seems became a nun to punish herself (which could have been interesting if it had been authentically explored) and even her mother's faith, which one assumes was genuine, seemed hollow to me. I couldn't help but feeling that this author was writing about something that she doesn't know much about. Save yourself from this book and if you want to read about children turning on each other, read "The Lord of the Flies." Or just find a book with a less interesting title and better crafted plot.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Melancholy Tale, February 9, 2003

By 

Louis N. Gruber "Author of Jay" (Lexington, SC United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Divine Economy of Salvation (Hardcover)

Sister Angela's comfortable life in the convent begins to unravel when she receives an anonymous package, a gift that links her to her early life as an adolescent in a Catholic boarding school, and the part she played in a terrible, tragic incident.

Now she must confront her past, her loss of innocence, her unfinished grief for her mother's death, and her fears of being exposed. And at the same time, she is dealing with a young pregnant girl who has arrived at the convent and somehow become Angela's ward.

Uppal is a polished writer who skillfully draws the reader in to Angela's inner struggles, moving easily between past and present to create a dreamlike, brooding reality. Yet, somehow it does not quite ring true. There are too many loose ends, unexplored characters, leads that go nowhere. And the ending, the redemption, at the very end of the book--well--it doesn't make sense. I was left with a feeling that the author simply wrapped up the story because she didn't know how to end it.

A powerful book, and worth exploring, but it could have been better. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber