Our Lady of the Forest (Hardcover)

by David Guterson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
David Guterson's Our Lady of the Forest navigates between the mystical and the cynical in its slowly paced telling of a Marian encounter in North Fork, Washington. The story opens in the North Fork campground among homeless mushroom pickers. The town is reeling from the loss of its logging industry, and its residents make their way by scavenging odd jobs and selling the produce of the forest. Living in the campground, 16-year-old Anne Holmes is a runaway asthmatic whose recent interest in Catholicism follows a period of petty thievery, drug use, and frequent masturbation (an interest that Guterson notes is shared by the town priest, Father Don Collins). While off on her rounds of mushrooming one morning, she encounters a bright light--the Virgin Mary, she believes. Soon, she has drawn a band of thousands as people flock to North Fork to witness the vision and be healed. But, through Carolyn Greer, a world-weary fellow-mushroom-picker who longs for nothing more than an extended vacation to "Cabo"-- readers learn that Anne actually sees nothing, or at least no one else shares the Marian apparition that gives Anne lofty commands each day.

At times Guterson lets his characters' pettiness, opportunism, and cynicism overrun the delicacy of Anne's world. Carolyn's vehement atheism and materialistic languor undermine what could have been a stronger counter-point to her spiritual friend. Even Father Collins, who struggles between fatherly compassion and sexual longing for the young visionary, is too full of self-loathing for readers to embrace him. Yet, the novel's exploration of Anne's abrupt and intense faith pierces the narrative and brings light to it. And as Anne's visions grow in intensity and her health begins to fail, one can't help but long for divine intervention on her behalf. --Patrick O'Kelley

From Publishers Weekly
When Ann Holmes starts having visions of the Virgin Mary, the bedraggled teen runaway becomes the last hope for the inhabitants of a dank, economically depressed logging town and the hordes of miracle-seekers who descend on it. In this panoramic, psychologically dense novel, she also becomes a symbol of the intimate intertwining of the sacred and the profane in American life. Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars; East of the Mountains), tells the story from the viewpoint of four lost souls groping for redemption: Ann; Carolyn, an aging, overeducated, cynical drifter who takes Ann under her wing to profit from her growing fame; a local priest wrestling with his doubts about, and lust for, the visionary; and a tormented ex-logger trying to atone for the accident that paralyzed his son. Guterson's evocative prose, pithy dialogue and piercing insights cut through the fog of sin and guilt that shadows these wounded characters like the overcast sky of the Pacific Northwest. And as Ann's visions stimulate a tourism boom and draw the attention of media vultures and a skeptical Catholic Church, Guterson explores larger social themes-the demise of blue-collar America; the ironic symbiosis of religious devotion and commercial exploitation; the replacement of faith in God by faith in psychopharmacology; and the link between the exaltation of women's saintliness and the reality of women's degradation. Searching for the miraculous in the mundane, this ambitious and satisfying work builds vivid characters and trenchant storytelling into a serious and compassionate look at the moral quandaries of modern life.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (September 30, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375412115
• ISBN-13: 978-0375412110
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (92 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #790,191 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

45 of 50 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful foray into human frailty laced with Divine Grace, November 12, 2003

By	Doug (Decatur, IL United States) - See all my reviews

In contrast to a couple of other reviewers below, I, as a Catholic, found this book to be an amazing feat of poetic, insightful analysis of the tensions that we all strive to resolve in some manner, between the frailty and caprice of our human nature, especially in the area of sexuality, and our desire for greater faith and grace, and between the "Church" as simultaneous institution and living organism.

As a happily married parent of three children and very active in "mainstream" parish Catholic life, having been involved in charasmatic Catholicism and Marian devotional groups, having traveled to Medjugore in the late 80's, having witnessed a supposed "Marian Locutionary" and the surrounding "hoopla" in the Chicago area at about that same time, having seen saints and shams, and having a rather broad knowledge of the various theological, philosophical and mystical topics interjected and alluded to, "en passent," such as Manichean Cosmogeny, Kaballah, and Platonic solids, I thoroughly enjoyed the perceptive character development of the various personalities involved, whom the author uses to embody and present the various elements of conflict. Through these personalities and their encounter with this unfolding apparition and the "visionary," we see our humanity exposed, and the Grace of God working in unusual, subtle and surprising ways in dark and hidden undercurrents.

In the end, we find that God does indeed "work in mysterious ways" and most often in spite of our foolishness and weakness! For the reviewers who accused the author of being "anti Catholic" and too focused on sex, I would say just the opposite. Yes, if you are offended by the laying bare of our human condition, as in the stark portrait offered in Tom Cross, or the "un-priestly" struggle of Fr. Collins with sexual desire, you may wish to skip this book. (Or maybe, it's time to open your eyes to what God already clearly sees in each one of us ... remind me again, why did Jesus come? To redeem sinners, or something like that?)

In my opinion, this book is an inspiring affirmation of our great God and his grace, the Catholic faith and the rather colorful assortment of characters that comprise "the faithful" and give vibrancy to our Church. I listened to it on CD on a solo 800 mile drive and found it an enlightening and agreeable travelling companion.

19 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Brave Departure!, November 14, 2003

By	Dave Schwinghammer "Dave Schwinghammer" (Little Falls, Minnesota USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

OUR LADY OF THE FOREST is a departure from SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS. Much as Bret Ellis did in AMERICAN PSYCHO, Guterson is sticking his neck way out here.
The plot is fairly simple. A young girl encounters The Blessed Virgin Mary in the woods while digging mushrooms. Before she knows it, she's got two thousand pilgrims breathing down her neck.
The trouble with this scenario is that Ann Holmes is a homeless person who's been known to smoke marijuana now and then and is also not averse to eating magical mushrooms. And she's not even Catholic! Guterson has fun making sport of Ann's devotees; much of the book is a satire on religious groupies whose gullibility is too much to believe.
The setting for OUR LADY OF THE FOREST is Washington state; Guterson adds a little environmental conflict in the person of Tom Cross, an out of work logger whose life is slowly swirling down the toilet. He feels responsible for his son's paralysis and he latches onto Ann of Oregon as his possible salvation.
Ann is a shy young girl and all of this hullabaloo is a little bit too much for her. That's where Carolyn Greer comes in. She takes on the role of Ann's spokesperson. She doesn't believe a word of this but she knows a goldmine when she sees one. She's a sort of Jimmy Buffett character who needs to earn money so she can winter in Mexico and some of the money meant for a Our Lady's new church sticks to her fingers.
The other main character is a first-year Catholic priest who lives in a trailer home; his church smells of mildew and he's thinking of leaving the priesthood. When he meets Ann, he's enticed by her Kate Moss, heroine-babe sexuality.
All of this is a whole lot of fun if you don't take religion too seriously and I guess that's the point Guterson is trying to make.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Finding a contemporary Mary in fiction, October 18, 2003

By	J. Tanner (Santa Teresa, NM USA) - See all my reviews

It is so difficult to find work with vibrancy that adds to a contemporary interpretation of Mary, Queen of the Cosmos, and David Gutterson in Our Lady of the Forest has managed such a task with grace and sensitivity.

Gutterson's characters are flawed and very human, and perhaps that's what makes the book so powerful. Mary, in her greatness, looks past flaws and into hearts. As I read the book, I was reminded of the story of Lourdes and St. Joan d'Arc, yet the book is far more than a rehashing of these stories.

For me, the book was REAL--Ann Holmes is a contemporary version of Bernadette but with modern and tragic complications. There is no sugar coating as in the church-accredited tales of Mary--Gutterson deals with the ugliness of sexual abuse, drug usage, depression, greed and mental instability, but moreover, he presents to us a story of beauty, spirituality, vision and undaunted belief. As I turned the last page of the book, I was sad that it ended. The book was like a good friend--in my life there are few people who understand a deep adoration of the Virgin, and for 300+ pages, I felt that Gutterson was one of them.

On a personal note, for many years, it has been the Virgin who has brought me back around and reignited my own spirituality. Our Lady of the Forest is a good read for those who like well-written fiction and a must-read for those who seek to deepen their understanding of the role of the Mother of God in the comtemporary world. It is, simply, a beautiful and moving book.