At one time, Christian fiction, with its hard-hitting religious messages and proselytizing narratives, was read by a narrow group. No more. In the past few years, Christian literature has gone mainstream, appealing to anyone who likes a good story.
Francine Rivers’ “Her Mother’s Hope,” which already is on the New York Times best-seller list, is an example of why that has happened.
“Her Mother’s Hope” is a 500-page generational novel, with a lengthy sequel scheduled for publication in 2011. It is a complex story of the relationship between the feisty Marta, a Swiss immigrant, and her placid daughter, Hildemara Rose.
As a girl in 1901, Marta is plucked out of school and sent out to work by her brute of a father. Her sister, Elise, the pretty one, is pampered, but Marta is expected to help support the family. Of course, her dream of college is out of the question, but she ends up in housekeeping school and eventually goes into service, learning to cook, as well as clean and serve.
Marta is torn between caring for her mother, who is suffering from tuberculosis, and working toward her goal of owning a boarding house. But her mother cuts her loose. Leave, Marta’s mother tells her. “The eagle flies alone.”
Marta ends up in Canada, where she does, in fact, own a boarding house. But she gives it up to marry Niclas, a German immigrant. He’s a nice enough guy, but not much of a provider. The two operate a farm in Canada but are cheated out of their earnings, then head to California, where the same thing happens. Eventually, through hard work and sacrifice (and faith in God), they acquire their own farm.
And four children. The son is athletic and popular. Two daughters are beautiful and talented. Then there is Hildemara, the second-born child. She is plain, meek, often driven to tears and, worse, she wants to be a nurse — a servant, in Marta’s eyes.
Hildie reminds Marta of her own pampered sister who died tragically. Marta prods her daughter, shames her in fact, into asserting herself. But Marta never tells Hildemara how much she loves her, how proud she is of her daughter’s accomplishments, and that is the mother’s great failing.
The crux of the book is the conflict between Marta and Hildemara. Believing she is unloved, Hildie attempts to gain her mother’s approval by working harder and taking on more family responsibility. Marta, in turn, tries to give Hildie a backbone by demanding more of her than of the other children. Eventually, Hildie does stand up for herself, but that does not bring mother and daughter closer.
“Her Mother’s Hope” has all the meaty elements of a blockbuster — love, abuse, tenderness, conflict and as much lust as a good Christian would admit. Rivers gives a fine sense of time and place — the Canadian wilderness, California in the early 20th century. She weaves in the bigotry of the two world wars — the hatred directed at German immigrants in America during World War I and the World War II removal of Japanese-Americans from the West Coast to inland internment camps.
Marta’s neighbors’ treatment of her and her family because of their friendship and support of Japanese internees is especially moving — all this, plus an element of faith that suffuses the novel without hitting the non-Christian reader over the head.
In an afterword, Rivers writes that the book was inspired by the troubled relationship between her own mother and her grandmother, a Swiss immigrant.
Rivers was a successful mainstream romance novelist before dedicating her life to her faith and switching to Christian romance. Her “Redeeming Love” is a runaway best-seller in that field.
“Her Mother’s Hope” isn’t really in either romance genre. It’s a solid novel of family relationships, a page-turner that appeals far beyond both the romance and the Christian categories.
Sandra Dallas is a Denver novelist, whose latest book is titled “Whiter Than Snow.”
FICTION
Her Mother’s Hope
by Francine Rivers, $24.99
