Related articles and links |  1 of 4

Her first novel, Grace at Bender Springs, got a mixed review in Christianity Today, but it was praised by other critics and devoured by readers. Her second novel garnered more attention, earning Wright, 43, a two-page spread in Publishers Weekly.

Wright's three novels—the third is in progress—follow three theological themes, though Wright says that is something of an accident.

"I wrote Bender Springs," Wright says ruefully, "as my way of getting out of taking comprehensive exams." Enrolled in a now defunct graduate degree in communications at Wheaton College, Wright had the option of undertaking some giant creative project instead of subjecting herself to comps. The choice was easy: I hate exams! Wright thought. And this will be the excuse for me to write something creative.

But Wheaton students weren't permitted to undertake just any creative project: their novel, or play, or poetry chapbook had to deal with some theological theme. Wright was musing over what slice of theology she might like to explore in fiction when she went to see Miss Firecracker, a movie starring Holly Hunter and Scott Glenn. "It was a movie very much with the quality of a play," Wright says. "It had intense dialogue and intense characters." Many things went wrong for Hunter's rather pathetic character. For his part, "Glenn was attractive in a sort of greasy way, but you didn't expect a lot of wisdom to come out of him." Still, when Glenn and Hunter sat discussing life's disappointments, it was wisdom indeed that Glenn delivered: In life there is always eternal grace.

"It struck me that that insight came from that character," Wright says. "It was an insight, of course, that transcended the story of Miss Firecracker. I wondered, Where did that insight come from? What caused the writer to put those words in that character's mouth?" Wright knew she had her theme. She would explore grace.

Grace at Bender Springs uses the rather heavy-handed metaphor of a drought to depict a community's spiritual dryness: a pastor's wife can't take the pressure of her position; a young widower tries to piece his life together. There is, of course, a revival, and grace haltingly, mysteriously flows through the parched town. The novel began as a collection of short stories, and though it went through many revisions before it was finally published, it still reads in some ways like a collection of short stories. Think of Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio, only Christian: the chapters add up to a whole, but they are loosely connected, and many could stand alone.

Wright's second novel, which hit the stands in near record time after Grace, is also a set of loosely connected sketches (Wright says she's not especially attached to the episodic structures of her books: "I just don't know how to write any other way"). It also tackles a theological theme, this time forgiveness. There's a lot to be forgiven in Leeway, Kansas, where the narrator, Velma, is a church janitor, all-around wisdom-dispenser, and short-order cook at her own restaurant. There's a neighbor's husband to be forgiven for abandoning her and their daughter, Shelley; there's a suave, privileged teenager to be forgiven for raping Shelley at the end of a date; there's a complicit church and its cowed pastor, a man with an éclair for a spine, to be forgiven for taking the rapist's side; and finally, there's Shelley's eventual husband. He's a dashing pastor-in-the-making and an undeniable catch. We have to forgive him for beating his wife, night after night, and eventually killing her mother.

next page... |  1 of 4

share this page

April 23 2001, Vol. 45, No. 6