Lambs of God

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Summary: The nuns teaching at Our Lady of Malibu were never like this
Review: "They were unkempt, practically savages. Their teeth were yellow, their skin lined and leathery. They wore no shoes. Everything about them suggested that they let nature just take its course."

Such is the disconcerting observation concerning Sister Iphigenia, Sister Margarita, and Sister Carla by Father Ignatius in LAMBS OF GOD. (No immaculately white wimples here!) When I was a young lad attending Catholic elementary school, the nuns, though occasionally intimidating, were blessedly cut from different cloth.

Fr. Ignatius is the bishop's private secretary sent to reconnoiter the property of a deserted and forgotten island abbey (presumably in Ireland, though the book never states). The diocese wants to sell the site to a land developer, which has plans to create a posh resort. To the cleric's consternation, the abbey is still inhabited by the three named nuns and their flock of sheep. The sisters believe the sheep harbor the souls of the nunnery's deceased members. Isolation from the rest of the world has rendered the three just a little ... well, touched in the head, and their religious observances a peculiar blend of pagan and Christian. When Ignatius announces that the nuns are to be relocated and the sheep butchered, it doesn't go over well.

This novel by Marele Day is a gentle and low key fable of confrontation between the religious women, determined not to lose the only life they know, and the ambitious, young priest from the mainland. Managing to incapacitate the cleric and hold him incommunicado, it's their intent to "convert" him to their community lifestyle. On the other hand, Ignatius knows that to escape, he must divide and conquer, so to speak. In the course of this test of wills, we discover some deep and startling secrets harbored by the sisterhood. (It's a pointed reminder that beneath their habits and clerical garb, nuns and priests are "just folks". Perhaps this lesson is one of the novel's biggest strongpoints.)

While I like LAMBS OF GOD enough to recommend it, female readers will probably better appreciate it. The predicament in which our lone male hero finds himself is decidedly embarrassing, and not one to elicit much sympathy from passing Real Men. In recognition of this gender-based bias, I gave the book one more star than I would have otherwise. And this comes after accepting the precarious premise that the Holy Mother Church could lose total contact with a religious house - a material and financial asset, after all - and its residents during the last years of the 20th century when the storyline apparently unfolds. It illustrates the benefits of staying in touch.

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Summary: Did anyone mention that it's hilarious?
Review: Although reviewers certainly have ample reason to praise the nuns' unusual combination of pagan and religious ritual, their imaginative story-telling, and the honest pleasure they find in their "cloistered" lives, not enough praise is given, in my opinion, to the quirky humor of this book. Whether you are an agnostic who chuckles to see religious practices carried to outrageous extremes or a devoutly Catholic believer with the healthy ability to recognize when true faith goes over the top, you will find this book a delight. Painted with a very broad brush, the novel will keep you smiling, even as you admire the author's skill in sympathetically creating a most unusual cloistered world.

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Summary: Eccentric and Charming
Review: I bought this book because of its alluring cover and its title. I decided to pick it off my bookshelf, where it was gathering dust, on the whim of a moment. And I'm quite happy I did.

Merele Day writes beautifully - I found myself re-reading some passages just for their beauty. A lovely atmosphere is created in this story - an isolated island inhabited by the three surviving nuns of a crumbling monastery who spend their days in ritual worship, knitting, and story-telling. There's a herd of sheep that they tend - which they believe embody the spirits of nuns of their order who have passed on.

The magic of the story begins when a young priest comes to the island to evaluate the property for a potential resort to bring income to the church. As soon as the nuns figure out his intent, a most humorous chain of events take place.

The use of faith, fairy tale, myth, ritual and memory weave the fine fabric of the world of these endearing characters brilliantly. It's charming!

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Summary: Ho! Ho! Ho! What a wild ride!
Review: I loved this quirky novel because it kept surprising me. Like the mysterious convent buried in brambles, the secret lives of these nuns kept unfolding in ways that astonished me and made me laugh out loud. Magical-realism is a tricky genre, but Day certainly managed to dance along quite nicely within its bounds. I couldn't believe the relationship that developed between the nuns & the sheep or between the nuns and the priest. It was wonderfully bizarre and yet somehow very touching. The way Day explores the motif of being exiled from the world, and the way she contrasts this a natural lust to explore, deftly provides much to think about. It's a far-out book that people might not pull in people who want an ordinary plot, but for those readers who enjoy having their minds stretched and their funny bones tickled, this is a memorable book!

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Summary: an original tale ( in contrast to plain "story")
Review: Marele Day is a young Australian writer. This book has come out here in Australia in a trade paperback format and so I have read it before it's published there. I finished the book in one day. It was indeed a lucky day for her readers when Marele Day decided to write not about crime and not featuring Claudia Valentine, P.I., Australian present day female private investigator. Mind you these books featuring Claudia are themselves pleasures to read especially if you are one interested in a city's atmosphere, topography, its citizens, how and where they live their lives and not just the intellectual challenge of the crimes. Lambs of God is completely different. Take three nuns living in isolation. They have developed their own rituals, an intertwining of the religious, the mysterious and the downright hilarious. There are very effective descriptions which give the reader a sense of place- a very old monastery, vegetation sprouting out of a statue of the virgin Mary's head, an island at high tide from which one can walk to the mainland at low tide. The name of this place is never divulged. Into this small triangle walks a priest with modern worldly motives. He has plans for the monastery which will change the nuns' strange world. So we are drawn in. The women with their strong spirituality and resourcefulness in the face of threat, the man bustling with businesslike scheming. One anticipates violence- it does not fall into that although tension is maintained. At times it is erotic in an innocent funny way. There are rituals of harvest, cooking, weaving, story telling - I felt like I had entered a different world altogether. Stories open on to other stories as the reader is let into each nun's mind then into the priest's. Who would think of breathing life into a mobile phone? It is done here and provides a twist the working of which will have you finishing the book in one day. The lambs of god of the title is another original feature of the community of three through which they have fashioned their version of a genealogy. This is a richly textured and original story, vastly satisfying in the reading. I couldn't classify it into any genre but it comes close to a psychological thriller in dreamily beautiful writing. There is talk of the book being made into a movie. I can only wish the movie will be as richly textured and satisfying as the book. That will be a complex task for all involved in its making!

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Summary: Allusions galore in this satisfying oddity
Review: This writer reminds me of Alice Hoffman in her earlier days (before Oprah chose her movie-of-the week novel about obsessive love) when she wrote novels that mixed superstition, witchcraft and fairy tale allusions in stories about everyday suburban life transforming to out of the ordinary eventful living. Day's novel is utterly odd, at times annoying, but nonetheless original and for the most part captivating. I especially enjoyed how the nuns' language was terse, almost like Morse code messages, in their conversations but became fluid, sensual, rich with description when they told their tales at their knitting & storytelling hour. Granted, some of the plot elements seemed to me a bit tired (the childhood sexual abuse of one nun, for example) and the few mystery-like elements to the story were predictable, but the quirkiness of the tale kept me going. I wanted to know if the poor priest would be executed, sacrificed, escape or be set free. At the point when Iphi! genia (my favorite of all the characters) becomes determined to outwit Father Ignatius and uses his business handbook in combination with the powerful "Car relic" (I love that!) -- the cellular phone, the story comes alive with action and page turning suspense. For a very unusual, weird break from run-of-the-mill novels and whodunnits, Lambs of God is a book that will satisfy anyone who cherishes genuine storytelling.