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Frannie’s five-year-old son Lester has begun asking questions about death and heaven, such as “How do people get to heaven? Do they walk?” His inquisitiveness arouses questions of Frannie’s own about faith and religion. She has never read the Bible or other religious books. Unfamiliar with formal religious doctrines, Frannie struggles to satisfy her son’s curiosity with common-sense (and sometimes far-out!) replies. She tells Lester that people "float" to heaven.
Bernice, Lester’s 80-year-old grandmother, has always been a hypochondriac threatening to die at any moment. Now, she’s in the hospital and it looks like she may be really dying this time, although she insists it’s her “allergies” that make her legs swell. Calvin, Lester’s father, is unable to deal with his mother’s illness so soon after his father’s death. Frannie leaves Calvin in Toronto and takes Lester with her to New Waterford on Cape Breton, off the coast of Nova Scotia.
In Frannie’s search for God, she attends a church, talks to a priest, begins to pray (even though she’s still not sure if anyone is listening), and even
visits a hypnotherapist. Frannie realizes that she still has a journey ahead of her if she wants to find her way to God, but that she’s traveled a long way on that journey.
Pearson has realistically portrayed the joys and the frustrations of raising a first child, with humor and understanding. I enjoyed her witty writing voice.
Reviewed by Marie DisBrow
for The Road to Romance
December 9, 2006
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