Revival Season by Monica West

Published by Simon & Schuster on May 25, 2021

A teenage daughter comes to realize that her father, “the Faith Healer of East Mansfield, Texas,” in whom she has invested her whole-hearted support, is a liar and a sinner. Actually, Samuel Horton is a grifter with a serious anger management problem, but Miriam Horton is too young to see her father in those terms. In her early teens, Miriam is beginning to consider rebellion against her father’s strict rules, although she doesn’t dare express those thoughts in his presence. Nor does she have the typical motivation for rebellion, having apparently never entertained a sexual thought in her life. She does have a mild crisis of faith, which at her age and in her situation is indistinguishable from a crisis of family. Unfortunately, Miriam never makes the intellectual leap that would cause her to look beyond her father’s overbearing behavior and to understand that she’s living in a religious subculture that will never value her, despite her growing belief that she is every bit as capable as her father of performing miracles.

Miriam’s mother apparently believes that Samuel has the power to heal, although she might just be playing her role in the family. Miriam’s brother Caleb definitely believes. He’s being groomed as the family’s next great faith healer. Samuel’s failure to heal most people who come to him is easily dismissed as God’s choice or a lack of faith on the part of the infirm, while his few apparent successes are embraced as proof of Samuel’s spiritual power. Blaming God for failure is the great convenience of a religious con. Those who might wonder why Samuel can’t heal his daughter Hannah, who was born with cerebral palsy and needs crutches and braces to walk, are told that her condition is God’s plan.

Miriam’s best friend Micah is diabetic. The story suggests that Samuel failed to heal Micah, that Miriam secretly healed her, and that Samuel is taking credit for it. The “miraculous” change in blood sugar levels is temporary, leading to one of many rifts between Samuel and his deacons. That rift and some violent episodes in Samuel’s life are dividing the parish and making it difficult for Samuel to pay the mortgage.

Miriam secretly enters the healing game with a fury when she learns that she can heal more capably than her father. Samuel is infuriated when he learns that she is a usurper. Even Miriam’s mother has been taught to believe that it’s a sin for a woman to do the work of men. Miriam’s biggest test will come if she decides to heal Hannah.

Revival Season is told from Miriam’s perspective as a teenager whose family travels the summer revival circuit. The novel’s focus on Miriam is dictated by the story’s first-person narration. The problem is that Miriam, having been home-schooled and largely homebound, isn’t an interesting character. She speaks in clichés (“I watched Papa like a hawk”) because her life as a southern evangelical is a cliché. A teenager who seems to have no interest in moving beyond the narrow confines of her existence (apart from secretly using her healing powers) has little of importance to share with the reader.

Miriam’s deeply flawed father is a more interesting character than Miriam simply because of his flaws. How does he feel about his crumbling life when parishioners abandon his church and other churches stop booking his revival appearances? If he really believes he can heal, how does he feel when that power dissipates? We get a sense from a sermon that he feels threatened by Miriam. We get a sense of his distress or frustration from Miriam, who perceives his growing tendency toward violence and rage, but Miriam’s perspective is shallow and self-absorbed, befitting her age and upbringing. How does Caleb feel about being the heir apparent to a father who is on the verge of losing his revival empire? We only catch a glimpse of Caleb’s evolving realization that his father can’t really heal people. A third person perspective that looked more deeply into the lives of Samuel and Miriam’s other family members would have offered greater insight into the world that Miriam inhabits.

Fiction allows readers to imagine, and perhaps to understand, lives that are far beyond their own. The novel doesn’t help the reader understand enough about the subculture that embraces revivals and faith healers. The novel is missing the atmospheric detail that creates a sense of realism. The characters seem like stereotypes — the abusive preacher who puts self-interest above concern for those he claims to heal, the meek wife who wants to leave but can’t bring herself to abandon her children — and the story does too little to give them personalities outside of their stereotypes.

I imagine Revival Season is intended as an allegory of female empowerment. It almost works on that level, although Miriam’s empowerment is equated with having an equal right to be a faith healer. Whether Miriam is actually healing anyone rather than creating the appearance of healing, like her father does, is never clear. The story would have been more honest if it suggested that Miriam was just as capable as her father of being self-deluded or a grifter. That would have preserved the allegory while adding intellectual honesty, but it also would have made Miriam just as unsympathetic as her father, so I understand why Monica West chose not to go in that direction. If Miriam wanted real empowerment, she’d encourage her mother to walk away and take the kids (a moment that is foreshadowed but never happens).

The novel might also be read as an indictment of faith healing, home-schooling, and a culture of ignorance, but that doesn’t seem to be the novel’s intent. This is a book that might appeal to certain readers of faith, depending on the nature of their faith. The story has some merit, but it just didn’t appeal to me.

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