In Squad We Trust: When a Church Committee Yields Unexpected Discovery

SEARCH
By Michelle Huneven

I’m not a great match for any organized faith, but when there’s a church on the market for me the progressive Arroyo Unitarian Universalist Neighborhood Church (referred to by its members as “Awk”) described in Michelle Huneven’s fifth novel, “Search,” could be it. There’s little or no God right here — simply (principally) respectful exchanges of concepts, potluck dinners and theme cocktails.

Written within the type of a memoir, “Search” is advised from the viewpoint of Dana Potowski, a well-known restaurant critic and memoirist, who’s invited to affix the search committee for the AUUCC’s new minister. Regardless of being a member of the church for twenty-four years, Dana is considerably stunned to be supplied a committee spot as a result of she hasn’t attended companies recently. As a substitute, she prefers leisurely Sunday mornings at residence along with her espresso, having fun with her newly renovated kitchen. Becoming a member of the search committee would imply a dedication of a number of hundred hours over the course of a yr. When she does reluctantly signal on, it’s not as a result of she’s moved to be of service to her church, however as a result of she’s simply come residence from a profitable guide tour and occurs to be casting round for a brand new concept. The search, she realizes, would possibly match the invoice.

The committee, made up of eight members, is a superbly numerous group in areas of race, age and gender. Dana, a witty and gimlet-eyed observer, is white, straight and in her mid-50s. She went to seminary college in her 30s and virtually turned a minister earlier than she turned a full-time meals author, so she’s fluent within the language of liturgical life. The primary battle within the guide is between the previous guard and the youthful era throughout the committee. The older group desires the brand new minister to have expertise above all and the youthful era lobbies for a recent perspective.

The search is supposed to be in regards to the lifting of souls, however Jennie, the youngest and most annoying of the committee members, objects to all of Dana’s favourite candidates and campaigns to get her fellow younger folks on her facet. She describes one in all Dana’s favorites as a “wussy bread baker with an all-face beard who wears black costume socks together with his Birkenstocks.” I might image this man precisely, and it looks like a depraved pleasure that after all of the lofty claims about wanting to counterpoint their religious lives, a person’s model of facial hair will get him eradicated.

The one criterion the committee they ultimately agree upon: The brand new minister will need to have “two X chromosomes.” As a result of Dana is nearer to the older era, and it’s her memoir we’re studying, we’re signaled to root for the older group. However as a result of Huneven is a clever storyteller, and Dana is just not the dependable narrator she appears to be at first, we ultimately come to know that everybody on this committee is an equally cussed ego-driven ache in a physique half one wouldn’t point out in church.

I loved this guide and located myself desirous to return to it so I might discover out who “received.” Nonetheless, I did have hassle nailing down the “so what?” of all of it. In some unspecified time in the future round midway via, I seen that I wasn’t feeling fairly fearful sufficient in regards to the consequence. I used to be following the motion, however holding it at arm’s size.

After we meet her, Dana reveals no indicators of remorse about transferring away from the church, so from the second she decides to affix the committee, I felt a bit of misplaced about what the stakes are right here. Discovering her subsequent guide’s topic is a motivator, but it surely’s not as if she’d cycled via many concepts for a brand new guide and was feeling determined. Maybe there’s one thing she’s hiding from herself — in spite of everything, what a personality says, thinks and feels are sometimes three very totally different emotional landscapes. However Dana as narrator seems outward, not inward. She stories, she doesn’t replicate. The opposite folks in her orbit who would possibly give us hints about what she’s actually like are additionally solely actually involved about themselves, getting a say and getting a (free) assessment lunch someday.

At one level, the committee is requested to checklist what they like in regards to the church and what they’d prefer to see change. They like the sensation of group. They dislike the ugly sanctuary. Curtis, a homosexual man who lately transformed from a conservative Christian church, makes his suggestion: “And don’t you suppose there may very well be, I don’t know, extra faith?” The remainder of the committee merely stares at him. Later within the dialog, when another person mentions God, Curtis asks, confused, “So that you do consider in God?” However they don’t, and what’s extra, primarily based on that scene and a few others, it’s clear that believing in God could be embarrassing. I thought of at this level whether or not the novel was in actual fact satirizing the state of recent religion (and faithlessness), but it surely’s too earnest in too many locations to be satire.

It’s in all probability the previous working-class Catholic basis in me that asks what a church truly is that if something goes, together with believing in God within the first place. This entire group feels not in contrast to a intellectual guide membership, or a gaggle train class the place the contributors are massively dedicated to their teacher and the way a lot she conjures up and motivates them. I really like guide golf equipment. I’m all for train. But when the guide membership disbands and the cycle studio closes, there’s no nice absence in anybody’s life. You possibly can nonetheless go on being a good, morally upright individual.

These eight very differing kinds are trying to find one thing and looking for it in potlucks, underneath the banner of faith. There might be nobody one that suits all the assorted standards they put forth for his or her future chief — a sensible reader is aware of that from the outset — so the search should actually be about trying to find which means in their very own particular person lives. So then, as soon as once more, the place does that go away the stakes on this novel? We all know from the beginning that if the search fails for any cause, Dana will simply return to her beloved Sunday mornings at residence. Her marriage (her husband is Jewish and attends synagogue), her profession, her happiness will stay intact.

That apart, this novel has plot, character, construction and a scrumptious, deeply human pettiness that I believe most sincere readers will relate to. And talking of scrumptious, Huneven’s descriptions of meals are one of the best I’ve ever learn, by far essentially the most vivid prose within the guide. I perked up every time I anticipated a meal. As an illustration: “Our pan-fried dumplings arrived, some trailing a darkish lace the place their juices had leaked onto the grill.” I might style that savory lace. Dana brings her fellow committee members to assessment lunches, partly as a result of she desires to know the place everybody stands outdoors of the official conferences, and partly as a result of it’s her job. I’d gladly tackle a yr of “engineered intimacy,” as Dana describes it at one level, to go on simply a kind of lunches.