Customer Reviews

Maybe a Miracle: A Novel

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It is rare these days to be propelled through a novel by the sheer force of wanting to know what will happen next. A young writer who can, through both style and subject, achieve that kind of urgency is a rare find indeed. With his debut novel MAYBE A MIRACLE, Brian Strause proves to be just such a stroke of literary luck. He has developed a plot that is compulsively readable, while also achieving nuanced character development, wit and honesty in his prose.

Strause is a refreshing new voice in the female-dominated world of nuanced and quirky family dramas; tales that are deceptively small-scale --- depicting one family's very unique story --- but nevertheless have resounding impact. Nestled between the lines of this deceptively sweet, fable-esque story, fundamental issues of faith, family, life, death, voyeurism and the media play themselves out. Unlike many a modern novelist, Strause never makes the self-aggrandizing declaration that he will tackle these "big ideas" --- he is never politically preachy or socially smug.

Crucial to this novel's disarming nature --- and one of the key ways to Strause's tackling of grander themes without coming off as pompous or pretentious --- is its narrator, Monroe Anderson. Monroe is an exceptional voice, wry and cynical --- a perfectly believable teenage boy --- but with an innate sweetness that shines through despite his own best intentions. Monroe himself would loathe to be labeled as sweet, to be called optimistic or engaging, and yet readers will find themselves fully devoted to him, allowing him to paint the story as it unfolds. The story starts on the night of his senior prom as Monroe goes into his backyard to smoke a joint before he meets his girlfriend and finds his younger sister floating facedown in the pool. Readers are thrust with Monroe into the spiral of events that unfold around him.

It is to Strause's credit that Monroe is such a nuanced and subtle character, one that feels so deeply realized and honest. One can't help but imagine that Strause culled much of Monroe from his own experience as a teenage boy. There is a palpable sense of the writer's duty to paint a ruefully honest portrait of a teenage boy who is both sweetly flawed yet deeply compassionate. In the wake of all the aspiring Holden Caulfields, contemptuous of the flawed adults around them and sneering their way through bumpy adolescence, Monroe is a revelatory creation.

The other members of Monroe's family are similarly well-drawn, each reacting to Annika's accident and the events that follow in unique and believable, yet unexpected, fashions. The rose petals that fall from the sky outside Annika's hospital room and her tendency to spontaneously bleed from her hands only complicate matters, as the masses flock to see this "Miracle," and each of them --- Monroe, his mother, his father, his grandfather and his older brother --- must somehow contend with the very bizarre nature of this young girl's celebrity. Monroe's mother descends into a kind of faith-based delusion, imagining Annika is a conduit for the pain and suffering of the masses and encouraging both the media attention and the pilgrimage of the sick to her bedside. Monroe's father withdraws both emotionally and physically from the family, burying himself in work and dulling the reality of his situation with alcohol. The descent of both of these characters is gradual, convincing and, as rendered through Monroe's clear-eyed gaze, heartbreaking.

Weeks after finishing the novel, long after they have turned the last page, readers will find themselves drifting back to the story of Monroe and Annika, mulling over the outcome --- the fate of the characters --- pondering the weight of the last scene, and perhaps flipping back to take in that last line. It is in the staying power of the characters, the stickiness of the morality at work here, and the weight of the themes that play themselves out, that the novel reveals its importance. Finally, MAYBE A MIRACLE is doubly satisfying, both as a compulsively readable, deeply felt work of literature and as the harbinger of an important and vital new voice in contemporary literature.

--- Reviewed by Jennifer Krieger

The often-uneasy combination of science and faith is at the center of Maybe A Miracle, Brian Strause's wise, witty, and sardonic debut novel about coming of age in America's heartland. Told from the perspective of the eighteen-year-old Monroe Anderson, Maybe A Miracle is all about how Monroe's family, an average American family is transformed by a terrible tragedy, and then by a series of unexplained events.

Monroe is a young, world-weary cynic, who has spent much his life trying to stay out of trouble. Totally wise before his age, he lives in a comfortably affluent suburb of Columbus Ohio, a thoughtful outsider, Monroe has a penchant for sarcasm and oftentimes looks quite mockingly at the mediocrity of the middleclass.

Monroe just can't stand his older brother Ben, a rising golf star, who has sadistically picked on him since he was a boy. He hardly knows his father, a workaholic high powered corporate lawyer, and his mother seems to be preoccupied with the demands of domestic life. It is only through Annika, his eleven-year-old sister that Monroe really feels as though he can be himself.

One afternoon as Monroe is getting ready for his school prom, he decides to escape to the pool house to smoke a joint before the big party. But nothing prepares him for the shock of finding his dearly beloved sister floating facedown in the family pool. Of course, he does what anyone would do and dives in and rescues her, but not quickly enough to prevent her from slipping into a coma.

While Annika's condition is diagnosed as in a "persistent vegetative state," his mother, actually believes that "she's locked in, which basically means she's in there but she can't get out," decides to look after her home. But this is a family where no one ever tells anyone anything, and they all cope with the tragedy in different ways, Monroe's mother turns to religion, his father turns to liquor, and Monroe himself must decide what's worth believing in.

Soon after Annika arrives back, strange things begin to happen. Annika begins to show stigmata - little pools of blood form on her hands and she starts bleeding from the wrists. The front room in which she lays starts to smell strangely of roses. Annika's stigmata, is nearly always accompanied by seemingly miraculous effects on others and every indication of extreme pain for herself.

Virtually every occurrence surrounding her - from an inexplicable rose-petal shower outside the hospital to the stigmata - is labeled astonishing by various characters, even though Monroe attempts to offer a scientific explanation for the events. According to Father Ferger, who councils the family, the opinion of the Catholic Church is that that an "anointed few are here to aid in the redemption and salvation of the world, to serve as a living reminder of the suffering Jesus endured for us all."

But Monroe, for his part spurns, the Church. He sees people as bartering with God all the time, making promises they'll never keep. "They might as well be asking for salvation on layaway." As word of Annika's powers spread, the family begins to attract various people, whom Monroe's mother calls "pilgrims," but his dad, in the throws of alcoholism, calls "losers." They're all so convinced that if only they could see Annika, she will be able to "heal" them and their problems would go away.

Monroe manages to maintain his faith, amongst the relentless media attention, the hundreds of pilgrims who try to visit daily, and a family that is gradually fracturing and falling apart. He hopes that someday Annika will wake up and they'll "ride out into the country for apple fritters and the wind will blow through her hair and it will be like none of this ever happened."

Author, Brian Strause, cleverly skewers the world of religion, raising some interesting questions about the nature of belief and faith. In Monroe's world, everything that happens, happens for a reason and where everything is a piece of the puzzle, a puzzle of clouds, "that we'll only be able to decipher when we're dead, but until then, have some faith."

Strause's characters are energetic, their personalities well defined, even eccentric in their innocent and blameless mediocrity. The writing crackles with energy, humor, and an appreciation of the often-uneasy relationship between the devotion to faith and the devotion to science. The author's prose is extraordinarily intimate, as Monroe, our intrepid, and trusty narrator, whispers sardonic secrets about his family and the world around him that only we can hear.

Maybe a Miracle is just aching to be optioned for a movie; it's a bouncy and lively tale that captures the imagination, lining up believers on each side of the philosophical divide, those who yearn for miracles and those who just don't believe in them. But it's also a novel that is about the spirit of the teenage underdog, who has more smarts, intellect, and adult charisma than he knows what to do with. Mike Leonard October 05.

From memorable characters to hilarious dialogue and one delightful plot twist after another, "Maybe a Miracle" should, by all rights, become the must-read novel of the new year. At a time when organized religion has coopted words like "faith" and "spirituality," it's nothing short of empowering when Strause effortlessly steals those words back for the rest of us. If you've forgotten how to believe ... well, read this book. You won't be disappointed :)

What a gem this book is! With a story as fresh and bizarre as you could hope for, and a young narrator that views the world through prematurely jaded eyes, this wonderful debut novel carries readers along on a weird new path through very familiar landscape. Set in suburban America, the lifestyle and characters are known to us all, but the family tragedy that turns life into an everyday circus makes "Maybe a Miracle" far more compelling than your average family drama. Monroe, the narrator, is a wonderful story teller-- his take on the events that unfold is cynical and wry, but with an unmistakable tenderness and longing for a return to normalcy. He wishes he could be more optimistic about the future of his comatose beloved little sister, but it doesn't seem to be in his nature. However, while he doubts his mother's certainty that Annika is "still in there", just to play it safe he plays Parliament Funkadelic records for her, to balance out the Neil Diamond their mother is blasting her with. His voice and his actions ring true on every page. But truer still are the confessions he makes to us, the readers. He tells us the things he would never speak aloud-- not to his parents, who probably wouldn't listen anyway, and certainly not to his sadistic older brother, who takes every word or action from Monroe as a new opportunity to humiliate and abuse him. But as the readers, we get to hear the whole story-- his bitterness, his fear, and his hope, quickly fading though it is. I found myself cheering him on at times, wanting to throttle him at others, but always caring what happened next. This book is touching, compelling, and very funny. My only disappointment is the book's title; "Maybe a Miracle" is far too lackluster and simpering to really give a reader any glimpse of how cool this book is.

This is exactly the book I've been waiting for. I picked up this book two days ago, and just finished it - I kept thinking I should savor it - since the writing is so amazing, but I literally couldn't put it down. I would say that Strause's writing places this book in the category of instant classic: seemingly effortless yet full of rich insight. I imediately identified with the dynamics of a family under unusual strain - adjusting and readjusting to shifting circumstances that are completey unexpected.

But my favorite thing about this book would have to be the narrator - Monroe. He joined the ranks of some of my favorite literary characters, occupying a vaulted place in my imagination-mostly because he made me laugh so hard at times with his searing observations that I was competely exhilirated by meeting him.

I not only recommend this book, I'm stuffing it in several stockings (yeah, they'll get stretched out of shape) this season.

It's the narrative voice that carries this book. The other characters are not as vivid and sometimes fall into cliches (the brother, particularly), but even then, protagonist Monroe's narration fills the gaps and tells the tale well, and with a dead-on take on teenage ennui that knows everything and nothing at the same time.

In this story, the central event is a young girl, who after hitting her head off of a diving board in her backyard pool is in a coma for about two years. The only reason that she doesn't drown in the water is because the younger of her two brothers, Monroe, jumps in and saves her as he notices her not moving in the water while he walks back to his pool house to get high before the prom. After this event, the story centers on the Anderson family and how they respond to the now precarious situation of their youngest daughter. The story's narrator is Monroe, a sarcastic teenager who thinks of all the things that he should do but never actually acts on them. On the whole, Monroe's voice seems to be a rather accurate portrayal of the 20th century young man who is disaffected by society and thinks he should do more but never has the courage to act. Throughout the story, as many spectacles occur regarding his sister, he more or less is the voice of reason in the story because we see that he is the only one who truly knew his sister and actually connected with her before the accident. Therefore, he knows what she would want the family to do. Her mother, who never truly knew her daughter because she was caught up in the pointless pursuits of rich suburban Ohio, such as zoning regulations regarding brick color of homes, becomes a religious fanatic after her daughter falls into a coma. She begins to think and is very well persuaded by the local priest that the only way to help her escape is by prayer. After a bunch of peculiar instances, such as a rose petal rain storm, a picture of Jesus on a wall and bleeding hands, which she thinks is a sign of stigmata (a catholic belief that a person is partaking in the suffering of Christ). After these events occur, people begin to believe that Annika, the daughter, is a victim soul who takes on the suffering of others to help cure them and for this reason people come from all around the world to pray to her and for her. What really ends up happening though is that she is turned to a religious side show as she ends up behind a pane of glass as onlookers come by regarding her in amazement in the same way that a child ogles over seeing his first monkey. Annika's father, who was a confident hot shot lawyer, slowly and pathetically turns toward the bottle and becomes a drunk since he doesn't know how to deal with his child's coma. He buries himself in his work and tries to find any way at all to escape his reality and to act like nothing our of the ordinary is really happening within his household. He also takes a typical modern day solution to his problems (and one we would expect from a lawyer, which is to sue everyone who is any way related to Annika's injury.

On the whole, I feel that this is a very interesting story and it is more about how Annika's family reacts to the reality of their situation than anything else. There is a lesson in it that we could all learn which to me seems to be that we cannot deny the reality of the situations around by trying to find other things to take up our time and energy. The only way that we can truly deal with tragedy is to accept it as part of our lives and realize that we can deal with it if we let it be real. One precaution to readers that I would have is that Monroe, the narrator, is a typical teenager and is sometimes whiny in the way that Holden Caulfield can be whiny. If you find Holden annoying or do not like that style of writing, I would say to shy away from this one.

I just finished Maybe a Miracle, and there was a lot to love about it. First of all, the protagonist, Monroe is so likeable. He is cynical, perceptive, human, and SMART. I just smiled over and over again at his observations. His character reminded me very much of the protagonist in Time Traveller's Wife which I just adored. Although the subject matter of these two books is entirely different, the tone of the books were similar.

I loved the way Brian Strause treated the subject of faith in this country. And I loved watching Monroe's faith emerge in spite of himself.

Be cautioned that the first chapter or two feel like this might be a really hokey book but please stick with it until you hear Monroe's voice emerge. He is one of the most likeable characters I've ever come across.

I also adored the portrait of his older brother and Monroe's sweet (yet not sappy) relationship with his sister Annika.

I can't wait to hear from this author again.

This book would have been fine but the heroine, Annika Anderson, is totally overdone. It's a good thing that for most of the action little Annika lies in a coma. Because the parts in which she is alive and well and speaking are unbelievable. The author, Brian Strause, is a talented writer with a Carson Kressley haircut on the jacket of the book. But he has read THE CATCHER IN THE RYE one too many times and too carelessly. He is trying to ape the chemistry between Holden and Phoebe Caulfield by drawing his brother and sister team, Monroe and Annika, and so he makes Annika this precious little 11 year old girl, every one of whose observations is supposed to be warm-hearted and yet scintillating, as though Margaret O'Brien were still young enough to play her in the movie version. One day Monroe drops her goldfish, Ping, into a blender and makes the little girl watch while he turns her pet into fish soup. She reacts so brokenheartedly that he swears never to hurt her feelings ever again. Instead the two become best friends.

Right after that I began to take a decided dislike to Annika. She was just too precious. Her mother has coffee table art books and Monroe and Annika debate whether or not Jackson Pollock is a fraud. "I always thought it was a joke that people made such a big deal about him. All I could ever see were splatters of paint, but Annika said that if you looked hard enough, you could see dancing." Groan.

The first real hint I had that we were moving into John Irving territory was when Emily, Monroe's first real girlfriend, takes a trip to Guatemala and breaks up with him by letter becayse she's met someone else, a boy called Billy. On top of everything else, why make Billy not only a musician, but a bona fide rock star? It's pretty over the top, definitely a danger sign especially when you're trying to balance a plot that already involves the stigmata, falling showers of rose petals, a miraculous baseball game, and so on.

The book's not awful it's just a shame it wasn't better. The older brother, Ben, was more sympathetic than any of the other characters, and should have been the narrator. Monroe is a dud who never changes, who has no arc, he's just this perfect, Holden Caulfield brother who only wants the best for his sister, which is admirable but boring. At least Ben changes, even if no reader will believe it.

I am an avid reader and I really enjoyed this book. Lately the books I've read have been quite boring and predictable. The characters in this book are real and even to the end, I wasn't sure what would happen. I think that's one of the best parts of the book, it pulled here and there, with the reader never sure what would happen next.