Catherine Fox: Love For the Lost (2000)

Edition: Penguin, 2000
Review number: 854

Catherine Fox's third novel takes a minor character from The Benefits of Passion and puts her centre stage. Isobel was one of the ordinands in the same class as Annie Brown, and now she is a curate herself. The novel follows her through two years at this post, as she learns a lot about herself and those around her.

The tone of Love For the Lost is darker than Fox's earlier novels; it continues to combine humour and drama, but the balance is rather further toward the dramatic. The novel is also more theological in character, in keeping with a central character professionally involved in Christian ministry rather than studying. This would probably make it less likely to appeal to non-Christians who haven't read the earlier novels, but it is well worth seeking out.

The main criticism I would have of this novel is that there is too much coincidence in the characters' relationships. Previously unacquainted people turn out to have several friends in common, something which is very unlikely (even if a friend of my wife's is married to someone I knew as a student). It is a bit annoying that this keeps on happening, and in most cases it is not at all necessary. Other than momentary irritation, it doesn't greatly detract from an enjoyable novel.

Catherine Fox: The Benefits of Passion (1997)

Edition: Hamish Hamilton, 1997
Review number: 824

Like Fox's debut novel, Angels and Men, her second is set at Anglican theological college Coverdale in Durham. Although it is meant to be ten years later, it is as though little has changed.

Annie Brown is training for ordination, but is more interested in the novel she is secretly writing than in her studies. Into it she puts her real feelings, has characters act in ways she wants to act but doesn't dare to, and in it she includes parts of the characters around her that she finds interesting. At the same time, she is trying to sort out her ambivalent feelings for Will, a friend of one of the other ordinands, and towards her vocation.

The novel's main failing is that it is rather too much like Angels and Men; many of the characters are very similar (and I don't just mean Johnny and Mara, common to both books). The central characters in both novels, for example, spends a lot of their time as some kind of creative artist rather than in their studies. The background of the theological college in the late twentieth century is rather limited, and it would be interesting to see what Fox could do with a different subject.

The major difference between The Benefits of Passion and Angels and Men - and one of its chief merits - is that it is much funnier. There is a fair amount of humour in the earlier novel, too, but here it is brought out far more. Joking is an important part of Annie's life, both external and internal. What has been jettisoned to make space for this and for the excerpts from Annie's novel - Mara in Angels and Men is an artist, which takes less space to describe - is dramatic background; the path Annie has travelled to where she is now is far less traumatic than Mara's. (She does, however, have a mother who must be one of the most awful in fiction.)

Angels and Men was exceptional; The Benefits of Passion is extremely good and very funny.

Catherine Fox: Angels and Men (1995)

Edition: Penguin, 1997
Review number: 771

The name Mara, given by Fox to the heroine and narrator of her début novel, means bitterness; it is the name taken by Naomi in the Biblical story of Ruth, when the death of her husband left her effectively a beggar in a foreign land. As such it is a strange name to choose for a child, especially when one of the parents is in the clergy. It is, however, appropriate for the character at the particular time in her life dealt with in Angels and Men.

Mara is a student in a theological college of a northern university, not named but presumably Durham from the descriptions. She has a turbulent background, having rejected the mild Anglicanism of her father for an extreme charismatic cult, and then, rejecting them in turn, cut off from her beloved twin sister Hester who chose to remain with them. The novel basically follows Mara through the college year, as she makes friends despite a desire to keep to herself, which earns her the nickname Princess.

The novel is simply but effectively structured, with each chapter bringing in a new revelation about Mara's background and character. (This means that by the end we have a very well drawn study of a particular person indeed.) The intensity of her recent experiences - she has effectively come out of a mind controlling cult - makes Angels and Men an exciting if uncomfortable read.