The Ascension of Mary, by William West, APR 2022 LTER
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Disclaimer: An electronic copy of this book was provided in exchange for review by publishers TouchPoint Press, via Library Thing.
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There’s a lot going on in this book, and West does a reasonably good job in juggling all the pieces. There’s domestic drama, racial tension, an unsolved mystery, ghosts, mysticism, religious fervor, and the fortuitous reappearance of long-lost messages.
Central to the story is 14-year-old Mary Hester, whose barely-adolescent shoulders have to bear most of the weight of this story. Mary and her single mom Rachel have moved back to her mother’s childhood home in a Chicago suburb after Rachel’s father dies, and one of the first things Mary does is to befriend the next-door neighbor, an elderly Black man named Jonah Culpepper, who turns out to have an important connection to Mary’s family. In fact, pretty much everybody in the story turns out to have an important connection to Mary’s family, and there are times when the coincidence factor threatens to get way out of control.
Even though Mary is the center of much of the story’s action, her character is pretty improbable. She’s never moody, petty, irresponsible, selfish, or boy-crazy – in fact she’s so much Little Miss Perfect that it seems inevitable that she’s a musical prodigy who may also be able to perform miracles, possibly with the help of the ghost which inhabits her bedroom. West takes his time in revealing the history of the room itself, which is tangled up with the unsolved mystery (see above) and racial tension among characters who continue to stroll into the plot well past the halfway point.
That it all manages to be an engaging read is not the least of the miracles pulled off here. Jonah, particularly, is a likable character who serves as a focal point for many of the novel’s plot strands. Readers can come away from this novel secure in the knowledge that goodness triumphs, evil is defeated, and Mary and her slightly unconventional family will probably now live happily ever after.
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There’s a lot going on in this book, and West does a reasonably good job in juggling all the pieces. There’s domestic drama, racial tension, an unsolved mystery, ghosts, mysticism, religious fervor, and the fortuitous reappearance of long-lost messages.
Central to the story is 14-year-old Mary Hester, whose barely-adolescent shoulders have to bear most of the weight of this story. Mary and her single mom Rachel have moved back to her mother’s childhood home in a Chicago suburb after Rachel’s father dies, and one of the first things Mary does is to befriend the next-door neighbor, an elderly Black man named Jonah Culpepper, who turns out to have an important connection to Mary’s family. In fact, pretty much everybody in the story turns out to have an important connection to Mary’s family, and there are times when the coincidence factor threatens to get way out of control.
Even though Mary is the center of much of the story’s action, her character is pretty improbable. She’s never moody, petty, irresponsible, selfish, or boy-crazy – in fact she’s so much Little Miss Perfect that it seems inevitable that she’s a musical prodigy who may also be able to perform miracles, possibly with the help of the ghost which inhabits her bedroom. West takes his time in revealing the history of the room itself, which is tangled up with the unsolved mystery (see above) and racial tension among characters who continue to stroll into the plot well past the halfway point.
That it all manages to be an engaging read is not the least of the miracles pulled off here. Jonah, particularly, is a likable character who serves as a focal point for many of the novel’s plot strands. Readers can come away from this novel secure in the knowledge that goodness triumphs, evil is defeated, and Mary and her slightly unconventional family will probably now live happily ever after.
