Into the Fire

“Southern Fiction” emotes immediate mental pictures for me. And sounds. And even tastes. Truth be told, I know very little about “the South” being one of them Yankee Northernahs—even worse: I’m from the Northwest. But to my credit, I’ve read a few of the Southern Fiction novels and enjoyed the different approaches each author took in telling their tales. Most of them weave some of their history into the storytelling and hold onto their particular expressions and accents and unique foods, not to mention their coveted disdain for the North.

In This Fine Life by Eva Marie Everson, published by Revell, southern life is viewed first through the eyes of Catholic boarding school graduate Mariette Putnam in the year of 1959. From a privileged family with the means to send her to college or to find her a good candidate from the ranks of the wealthy to be her husband and provide her with a fine life, her father who owns a very successful business wants her to get an education while her mother much prefers the latter for her only daughter. But Mariette is smitten by Thane Scott, a handsome young blonde man who works for her father at an entry-level job. He’s forward, enticing, and being from a farming family, he’s anything but rich, and when he gives her an ultimatum after her parents forbid her to see him anymore, she can’t imagine spending her life without him and decides to elope with him that very night.

After their initial passion in a cheap motel, the reality of their lives together provides a rude awakening for Mariette, but she’s just stubborn and defiant enough to plow through the poverty of their situation and their immediate first residence with Thane’s aunt while enduring the shock and ire of her parents. It doesn’t take long before Thane decides the Lord is calling him to be a pastor, something Mariette doesn’t quite understand, and this leads to another move from their own tiny apartment to her parents’ home during Thane’s schooling which finally produces a real relationship between Thane and Mariette’s family.

Since the POV is through Mariette’s young eyes, the reader rides along on the journey of an immature love which starts out with the typical romantic antics of two people who know little about the big picture of life or even about each other. Their struggles to become husband and wife, to understand their roles as adults, for Thane to rise to the “man of God” role when Mariette shows no evidence of embracing the reality of his faith, accompanied by a tragic loss—all these challenges lead them to Thane’s first pastorate in a tiny town where Mariette feels like she’s on the outside looking in, a familiar feeling which kind of describes her life thus far.

Since Mariette has yet to discover any real faith in Jesus, the “job” of pastor’s wife seems foreign to her and outside of her abilities since she can’t even cook “fried chicken” or much of anything else. She establishes a few relationships, one with a teenage girl who desperately wants to leave the town and never return, but without really knowing this God of her husband’s faith, she fails to understand much of what Thane must do. With the discovery of a terrible situation, Thane insists Mariette return to her parents’ home until it can be resolved.

This Fine Life presents the story of a naive young couple who enter into marriage and travel through the trials of life together to attain a “fine life”. Told through the eyes of a young woman who can’t seem to grasp who God is until she faces her own desperation, it’s a coming of age story mixed with a coming to faith story filled with the petulant emotion of a young storyteller and the antics of an immature couple trying to navigate their way through lust, love, and the longing for things they believe, things they perceive, and things they simply can’t understand in their youth. It’s a tale of learning about life and faith and the inherent challenges between a man and a woman and a patient God.

Cleanly written and stylized to sound like a young woman’s account, This Fine Life by Eva Marie Everson is up-market/commercial women’s fiction and will appeal to both the young and old of southern fiction fans as well as those who enjoy the relative innocence of the lives lived in the late 50s and early 60s.

Available May 2010 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Father, you’ve given Eva Marie a niche and a voice in this place of writing. Please continue to bless her efforts to communicate your grace through her stories. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.