She is also devoted to her Order and its motto:
To share the light in a dark world.
For breaking convent rules one of her punishments is to clean the stained glass windows. She has discovered:
…. that if you pressed your face to Mary’s face in the Nativity glass, you could peer right through her translucent eye and see New Orleans shimmering below like a moth wing …. The city was electric at every hour, but at dawn, I was astonished by the wattage of color that vibrated in the silken light. Pink-,yellow-, and persimmon-painted shotgun homes …. Purple and green Mardi Gras parade beads and gray Spanish moss dripped from the branches of gnarled oak trees.
There are four sisters at the convent - Sister Augustine, Sister Honor, Sister Therese known as Sister T. and Sister Holiday. Sister Augustine is the Mother Superior. Sister Holiday is a generation younger than the other Sisters.
The sisters have a spartan lifestyle:
We had no computers in the convent. No cameras. No phones, except one corded green wall-mounted rotary relic in the kitchen. No money of our own. Our radio was a vintage model with a working dial, gifted by Father Reese. We bartered for goods like books, chicory coffee, red licorice, and Doritos (blame Sister Therese). We grew seventeen varieties of fruits, vegetables and herbs in the garden, between the church and convent.
Sister Holiday was an accomplished professional guitarist. Now she is a demanding music teacher expecting commitment from the high school students at St. Sebastian.
Her “God is a They too powerful for one person or gender or any category mere mortals could ever understand”.
While having a quiet smoke next to a dumpster fire erupts from a wing of the school. Sister Holiday sees the school custodian, Jack Corolla, on fire, fall to the ground from the second floor.
Magnolia “Maggie” Riveaux, New Orleans first black female fire investigator, informs Sister Holiday it was arson.
A second fire at the school and another death heighten the tension. The investigators struggle to find a motive.
Sister Holiday is determined to solve the case. She loves classic mysteries and has been solving minor mysteries within the convent.
What a remarkable sleuth. The pages raced by.
Sister Holiday has intense disdain for their bishop and his two vicars. I regretted that they were caricatures while the sisters and female investigators were full characters.
Sister Holiday’s chaotic earlier life, including a long term same sex lover, is explored in detail. Few sins have escaped Sister.
I was sad that there is an absence of joy in Sister Holiday. Her turbulent self-destructive past has scarred her but she has joined a Holy Order with belief in God and eternal salvation. She has stayed for a year and is nearing the time for final vows. She connects to God in prayer and appreciates the rituals that define a nun’s daily routine. Faith should let her feel joy, not just pain.
At her core is a fierce determination to solve mysteries.
Humility is a challenging virture for Sister Holiday.
Through it all the New Orleans “heat was solid, wet, and thick”. It drains the energy from everyone. Sweat and body odor are pervasive.
The ending was theatrical for me but it was in keeping with the plot
There is a lyrical quality to Douaihy’s prose as she drives the story forward.
The striking cover caught my attention in the bookstore. Fair or not, I doubt I would have picked up the book except for the cover.
The only hard boiled nun I have encountered.
I am intrigued, Bill. Sister Holiday sounds like a fascinating character. She reminds me just a bit of Stark Holborn's Sister Thomas Josephine, who is perhaps more conventional, but who has a similar non-judgemental way of thinking and a pragmatic approach.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. I am not familiar with Sister Thomas Josephine. I would not call Sister Holiday non-judgmental in her thinking. She has her own biases. She is definitely pragmatic. As with most of us there are contradictions in her life.
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