Jules: Well, here we are in our last week this month of guest-writing in ForeWord's "Shelf Space" column, and we've enjoyed every week. At our literary blog, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast (or "7-Imp"), Eisha and I sometimes like to do what we call co-reviewing. Less like a review and more like a book discussion over cyber-coffee, our co-reviews are pretty much a back-and-forth about a particular title. We've even recently started inviting other bloggers to come join us for guest "tri-reviews."

Here's a co-review of the new novel by Haven Kimmel, an author whose books -- each and every one -- we adore with a devotion that probably verges on stalker-ish. Heh. Friendly caveat: There are plot spoilers below. You have been warned.

In The Used World (Free Press, 9780743247788), Haven Kimmel's final novel in what she has called The Hopwood Trilogy -- a loose trilogy with Kimmel's previous novels, The Solace of Leaving Early and Something Rising (Light and Swift), published in 2002 and 2004, respectively, and all set in small-town Indiana -- we enter Hazel Hunnicutt's Used World Emporium, an antique store that is "the station at the end of the line for objects that sometimes appeared tricked into visiting there." Hazel is tough, but she's also hiding big secrets from her past that, in the end, the reader discovers are linked to her two employees at the Emporium: Claudia Modjeski and Rebekah Shook. Claudia -- freakishly tall, over age forty, often mistaken for a man, and terrifically lonely -- still grieves over the death of her mother. Rebekah, who still lives with her strict Pentacostal father, is pregnant with the child of a failed songwriter/musician who has left her. After Hazel manipulates Claudia into adopting the sickly, newborn child of a meth-addict and Rebekah's father kicks her out, Hazel convinces Rebekah to move in with Claudia. The two women and the baby form a makeshift family. Along the way, Kimmel flashes into the pasts of most of the major characters, revealing layer upon layer of their complicated lives of loneliness and devotion and desperation and faith. In the end, though, it's infused with hope, and Kimmel -- as she has done previously in the trilogy -- provides enlightening commentary about the Christian faith through minister Amos Townsend.

So, Eisha, what did you think of the novel? It almost pains me to say this, 'cause I adore the writing of Haven Kimmel with a blinding intensity, but I think you might actually be the bigger fan, in that you have read every dang book she's written and I'm still a bit behind. So, did the novel meet your expectations, particularly as the final book in the so-called Hopwood Trilogy?

Eisha:  In a word: yes. All I really expected was to be wowed by her writing, and I certainly was, just like I always am by every single book this woman writes. From the very first paragraph, I was captivated:

“Claudia Modjeski stood before a full-length mirror in the bedroom she'd inherited from her mother, pointing the gun in her right hand -- a Colt .44 Single Action Army with a nickel finish and a walnut grip -- at her reflected image. The mirror showed nothing above Claudia's shoulders, because the designation 'full-length' turned out to be as arbitrary as 'one-size.' It may have fit plenty, but it didn't fit her.”

I also fell completely in love with the three main characters: Claudia, Rebekah and Hazel. The, well . . . trinity they form is practically a work of art in itself: each one is so distinct and fully-developed, yet the three are so well-balanced within the story. I thought it was quite an accomplishment.

How about you? Did it meet your expectations?

Jules: Oh lordamercy yes. Is it not like a big gift to be taken into one of Haven's worlds? I hate finishing one of her books. And didn't you say you immediately started re-reading after finishing it the first time?

I also remember you saying when we first started the novel that you were so happy to simply be in the presence of Amos Townsend again, the town's minister ("trying to minister to a congregation that would prefer simple affirmations to his esoteric brand of theology," as the publisher puts it so well for The Solace of Leaving Early). I missed him, too, and probably did actual leaps around the house after I got the book in my hands and knew I'd be reading more of his thoughts and sermons. The Booklist review wrote, "Kimmel's take on spirituality is intriguing, though her more detailed passages about religion slow an otherwise swift plot" to which I want to object heartily. I need to read Amos' words; I think he's one of the top-ten most extraordinary characters in contemporary literature; and, contrary to what that reviewer thinks, I find that his words amplify the plot, bring new insights to the actions and heartbreak of the characters (and, particularly in this novel, his words are a perfect counter-balance to the close-minded, orthodox, and controlling words of Vernon, Rebekah's father).

(I almost typed "Atticus" instead of "Amos"; am I crazy for seeing some Atticus Finch in him?).

It's like this: I'd go to church if Amos could be my minister. I always read and then re-read and then re-read one more time all of his sermons.

Now, I know I've already quoted from one review, but I'm about to quote from another one (you know I'm a review geek, so it's no surprise). I really love this from Donna Rifkind, writing for The Washington Post:

"How to rediscover faith in this used and broken world, during a vacuous holiday season, in a junk shop tricked out to look like home, among the old eggbeaters and heavy black telephones of the dead? Kimmel manages to suggest that hope is possible here, urging her trio of unhappy pilgrims, along with two unanticipated babies, into a peculiar but convincingly loving family. She accomplishes this not by tidying up all the book's odds and ends, as other writers might, but by leaving them loose. The questions her characters ask -- 'Where is the past, exactly?' wonders Hazel -- are always more vital than the answers. In an interview with Powells.com in 2004, Kimmel mentioned why she spent 2 1/2 years studying religion in a Quaker seminary in the early 1990s. 'I realized that if . . . I wanted to be a writer at all, I would have to commit myself to asking the largest questions of life I knew how to ask, and it seemed to me that those were questions about time and death and change.'"

I love that. I love Kimmel's Rilke-esque devotion to trying to love the questions themselves. And I love the loose ends. It would just be wrong if it were all tidied up, don't you think?

Eisha:  Oh, absolutely. The excerpts from Amos's (Yes! Amos/Atticus! I see it!) sermons are all about the questions, and I love him, or I guess Haven, for it. They are definitely an integral part of this novel, and as for the reviewer who complained that they slow down the plot -- well, who reads Haven Kimmel for the plot?

You're so right -- the characters line up like a spectrum of organized religion, with Vernon's harsh, hypocritical, judgmental fire-and-brimstone version on one side; and Amos's intellectual, earnest, no-easy-answers on the other. You could even say that Claudia's memories of her parents' gentle, unquestioning faith falls somewhere in the middle. And Rebekah, struggling to define herself when the religion that defined her for the first twenty-five years of her life is stripped away, kind of transcends the spectrum -- she just basically is faith and hope and goodness, and the dogma was really just getting in her way.

But then there's Hazel -- psychic, astrologist Hazel. And funnily enough, she does have some of the answers, and uses that knowledge in righting some of the wrongs of the past and lining up all the players for the happy-ish ending. Were you as surprised as I was at this inclusion of decidedly non-Christian spirituality and the supernatural?

Jules: Yeah, regarding those various faiths on the spectrum you mention, I loved this (about Claudia): "From Nativity to Crucifixion, Christianity was a club into which Claudia had been born; she hadn't needed to apply or beg entry."

As for the supernatural, nah, it didn't surprise me. It certainly is another point on the spectrum (though I suppose that doesn't get categorized/labelled as "organized religion"; it's almost like Hazel's beliefs were a counter-balance to that entire spectrum). But, sure, I suppose it's the first time in one of Haven's novels we've read about such beliefs, huh? I thought it was (mostly – see below!) gripping, reading about Hazel's past and putting all the pieces together.

But what I loved the most was the growth in Claudia's character (particularly, her honest conversations about her sexuality with Amos toward the close of the book). I love love LOVED this excerpt and it also momentarily snapped my heart in two:

“What infuriated her was simply that she had, out of the blue and surely against the wishes of all the Millies everywhere, been given what everyone else expected as a birthright. The world belonged to other people; it belonged to the Death's-heads in their SUVs, to frat boys, to the fat women in the gas stations who stared at Claudia as if she carried a plague. It belonged to evangelicals and morbidly narcissistic politicians. No one had ever said to her . . . no one had told her that the brand-new, perfect, everyday world was hers, was Claudia's as much as it was anyone's.”

And, while I'm flipping through the book finding great Haven lines, here's the best of all: "Rebekah never would have guessed -- it didn't occur to her until she was fully grown -- that not everyone shared her belief that God had spared humanity its relentless fate in a single way: by making a good portion of every day hilarious." Rebekah certainly had a lot of growth, too, needless to say.

And I know I'm supposed to lead off with another question for you, but oh Eisha, there is just so much Haven-glory here that I am having trouble focusing. Here are two big 'ol themes I loved, and then I suppose you could tell me, if you're so inclined, what -- of all the goodness -- stood out for you the most:

I loved the juxtaposition (I promise I don't just feel like I have to throw the word "juxtaposition" into a lengthy book discussion; I really mean it) . . . as I was saying, I loved the juxtaposition between the Used World, "filled with the castoffs of countless lives," and the cluttered, disposable Wal-Martian world of the contemporary suburban life (such as, the night Rebekah is in the mall, trying to figure out where to sleep after having been kicked out of her home: "The lighting was aggressive, and everyone looked older than they were, and defeated").

And, secondly, I loved the women-doing-it-for-themselves-snap-snap empowerment in the book and all the, well, father-commentary, such as when we get the first description of Hazel's mother's clinic ("a world without men . . . {Hazel} knew for certain that women free of fathers speak one way and they make a world that tastes of summer every day, and when the men come home after winning the war -- or even if they don't come -- the shutters close, the lipstick goes on, and it is winter, again"); when Claudia is getting rude stares for being so mannish ("when the toothless women in sweatshirts, their bodies and hair reeking of cigarette smoke and fast food, stared at her cruelly or even went so far as to make a comment, she no longer thought, They hate me. Now she tried to remind herself that if we don't feel the weight of the human condition, we must not be fully human. She thought instead, They hate themselves. They hate being alive. They hate their Fathers"); and the moment in which Rebekah is remembering her mother, wanting to perhaps leave a note to tuck in a drawer, should her father ever get re-married:

“The note could say: My mother sprinkled cinnamon in her vegetable soup. She cooked rice in chicken broth, not water. She touched everything as if it were fragile. She listened when you talked and she didn't judge and she had an easy laugh, for a woman in her time and place. Resting her head on the table, Rebekah cried and cried.”

Sorry I'm all over the place, Eisha. You know how it is with Our Haven. Did those themes strike you, too, in one way or another?

Eisha:  No apologies necessary, J. You're spot-on -- I'd say the whole female-empowerment theme is definitely key, as is the complicated father-wife-daughter (hey, another trinity!) relationship. And the "juxtaposition" you mention between the Used World Emporium and the Wal-Mart/strip-mall culture is also huge. The contrast between the past and the present is brought up again and again, usually with the present looking rather shoddy in comparison. True, with the female empowerment theme, you do see progress in the role of women: the fact that an abortion is a legal (however distastefully offered) option for Rebekah, for example, rather than something she would have had to have done at Hazel's mother's secret clinic in the 1960s, could be seen as progress in a good way. The fact that Claudia does have options regarding her sexuality -- although she's hampered by the small town environment in which she lives -- that weren't available to Hazel is another example. But more often, the architecture and culture of the town, and particularly its residents, are held up to the spectacle of the past and found wanting. This theme of decline and decay is pretty well summed up in this passage from Claudia, reminiscing about her mother as she visits her sister:

“How could it be that everything had changed so much so quickly? There was no such world as had Ludie in it. She was the last mother to put up vegetables every year; the last fat mother who didn't dye her hair or wear pants to church; the last to sing the old hymns and maintain a flourishing garden. Claudia couldn't think of one other soul in the world who had a pawpaw tree in the yard, one that bore fruit, and that was because of Ludie. But Millie was the New Mother, no doubt about it, driving her SUV and buying everything in her life (her clothes, her furniture, her food, her pictures in frames) at the Wal-Mart. Sitting in Millie's country kitchen with her seven thousand unnecessary pieces of plastic, Claudia sometimes expected to hear a voice call out for a manager in aisle nine. Ludie had worked all day from the time she got up until she went to bed. She cooked and cleaned and visited the sick. In the summer she gardened and hung the washing on the line; in the autumn she raked leaves and baked; in the winter she shoveled snow and made candy. All spring she drummed her fingers on the windowsills, waiting for the time to put in annuals. She was never too sick or too tired for church or to take care of her own elderly parents. But it was Millie, who did none of those things and had no other job besides, who treasured time-saving devices like nacho cheese you could heat up right in the jar.”

I'm glad you also included that great Rebekah quote, because it applies to the book as a whole, too. Sometimes the story verges on tragedy, and there are some unconscionable scenes that are going to stay with me for a long time (like the scene where Claudia and Hazel find the baby). But peppered throughout are these utterly hilarious bits of dialogue and description that sometimes had me hooting out loud. Like this one between Hazel and Claudia, on their way to visit Hazel's sister at the motorcycle gang/meth lab compound where she stays:

“’Hazel, are you carrying a gun?’
‘Of course I am. I always carry it when I visit Edie, wherever she's living.’
Claudia pressed her thumbs against her temples.‘Do you have a permit? A license to carry? A license to conceal it?’
'Well, yes, Claudia, I do. But if I didn't that wouldn't stop me.’
 . . .’What kind of gun is it?’
Hazel unsnapped the holster. ‘It's a Derringer.’

The gun was no bigger than a deck of cards. Claudia reached out and took it, admired the mother-of-pearl handle. ‘Forgive me, Hazel, but if we find ourselves in danger, are you going to ask one of those fat, tattooed psychopaths to lift his shirt and point to his kidneys? Are you going to say, “This barrel might feel a little cold, Porky, but I need you to stand still?"’

Hazel took the gun back, narrowed her eyes at Claudia. ‘You're right. Good thing I have the nine-millimeter in my coat pocket.’”

So, I've got a question for you. Lest we sound like Haven is paying us for this review . . . is there anything about this novel that struck you as less-than-perfect? I have a couple.

Firstly, I sometimes felt that references to Rebekah's backstory got a little repetitive. I do get that to grow up under those cult-like circumstances, and then to suddenly be cut off from everyone you've ever known and forced to make your way in an unfamiliar world, is a big deal. But I didn't necessarily feel that I needed to be told that as often as I was.

Secondly (and this is tiny, really) -- how did Vernon know when Rebekah would go into labor? I know, he threatened in his letter that he knew when she'd be due, but didn't she go into labor early? Yet he showed up anyway. Maybe he's psychic too?

And one more thing: I'm not sure how well the whole Claudia/Amos relationship plays out if you haven't already read The Solace of Leaving Early. It's not crucial to the plot or anything, but I think to get why Amos is such an important character it would be helpful.

But I want to be clear: these are minor quibbles. On the whole, I loved this novel, and I think Haven broke new ground for herself here. The plot plays a much more significant role in this novel (as compared to character and theme) than in previous ones, and the tone covers a wider spectrum of emotion than I think her earlier novels do. Consistent throughout Haven's writing, though, are solidly realistic characters that completely steal your heart; a powerful philosophical depth to her themes; and the pure poetry of her writing. Those elements are in full effect here, as always.

Jules: Interesting question about Vernon showing up early. I didn't even catch that. Good one, Inspector Gadget.

I suppose I would say the less-than-perfect for me, as you put it, would be that the backstory on Hazel was a bit, well . . . that aforementioned Washington Post review also said that the narrative in this novel is "overcrowded" (though the reviewer goes on to say that "Kimmel pulls off an unexpectedly affecting novelistic coup . . . That so messy a book forms such a satisfying whole is a bit of a miracle"). I don’t agree that the dramatic action as a whole was crowded, but to me, the Hazel backstory got a bit cramped at times. Also, compared to her other novels, it took a bit more time for me to get invested in these characters. I don't know why. And I'm not saying I failed to ever invest, 'cause boy howdy and howdy boy did the opposite happen. I loved them, Haven's "trio of unhappy pilgrims," as Rifkind put it so well. As I said, I didn't want to close the book when I reached its end. But with Solace, for instance, she had me at hello, but it took maybe a chapter or two for me to really get with this novel's flow.

But this is a minor complaint, like yours are. I mean, this is Our Haven we're talking about, the best contemporary American author there is.

Thanks for talking The Used World with me, E-dawg. 'Twas fun. And, as always forever and ever amen, I look forward to what Haven Kimmel brings us next.

Posted by: Julie Danielson and Eisha Prather