- This Vogel Award winning novel is a deliriously wacky read and I loved it. It's also a serious and savage critique of Christian evangelists and their primitive beliefs and ugly behaviours.
- The formal structure of the book is intriguing. Times, perspectives and interactions are all brought vividly to life via text messages and emails, and the line between fantasy and reality is porous. The story ranges over twenty-two years and is set in the lively inner suburbs of Brisbane.
- Lucas, a pastor, and his ex-wife Frances have split up, and their toddler daughter Neve is terminally ill with liver cancer. Frances narrates this tragic drama via her diary, The Gospel According to Frances, in chapters and verses as the book proceeds. Lucas is a pastor at the Eternal Fire Pentecostal Church, but Frances, formerly a committed member, has seen through its bullshit and abandoned it.
- A young 16 year old girl, Mary, seeks help from Frances because ‘An angel told me I’d get pregnant. Two weeks later I did’. She tells her story via an old testament-style diary The Book of Mary, and announces her 'immaculate conception'.
- Other characters enrich the story - sex workers, theatre actors, colourful queers - and Frances is attracted to them as life-affirming beings. Her ex-husband, of course, is appalled.
- McGahan explores large themes which give the novel a real and satisfying intellectual depth, principally the tensions between religious belief and science, and emotional immaturity and adult realities. The Church holds a service to heal Neve: ‘We’re here to pray the cancer OUT of Neve’s body’. Frances of course objects.
- There is an element of fantasy in the novel which at times I found hard to fathom. Frances initially rejects helping Mary for example and takes her to New Farm Park where 'streeties' hang out. It's infested with druggies and abusers. All of a sudden we're buried in a dreamlike setting, hosted by the 'Innkeepers'. It's some Mad Hatter’s dinner party, a real feast in 'the garden of unearthly delights’. Frances feels 'confronted by supernatural portals in the darkest moments of my life’.
- Tragically a murder occurs in the park and the police get involved. We're back to reality. A streetie was attacked and died of blunt force trauma to the head. A crime drama develops from here, and Frances is implicated. She approved an organ donation from the victim which coincidentally helps Neve. The favourable circumstances for mother and daughter are turned into engineered ones by the police.
- I enjoyed this novel immensely. It's superbly written, thought provoking, and very insightful. Frances is an inspiring character who will stay with me, and I will come back and re-read her sermons and speeches to the church congregation frequently.
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