Our Lady of the Forest

"Give your heart to the precious son and take refuge within his wounds."

Ann Holmes is a teenage runaway girl whose only source of income is from gathering and then selling mushrooms in the woods around the North Fork camp-ground in up-state Washington. One day whilst alone in the forest as she brushes dirt from the gills of a mushroom she notices a strange bright light that hovers between two trees. She is initially frightened and runs away reciting an Our Father and three Hail Marys as she does so. However when she witnesses the light again she sees a human figure within it gliding towards her and recognises the figure as being the Virgin Mary. On returning to the camp-ground Ann seeks refuge in her friend's Carolyn Greer camper-van. show more On hearing Ann's tale Carolyn is sceptical but agrees to accompany Ann back into the woods for another look. Although Ann alone sees the figure again Carolyn is struck by her reaction to the apparition and reports the sighting to a few of her own friends. Thus word spreads and so ever greater crowds of pilgrims, including the local priest Father Donald Collins, turn up to accompany the two women to share and document Ann's contact with the Holy Virgin.

Ann Holmes is an unlikely choice as a visionary. She is sixteen, an itinerant runaway, the daughter of an unmarried teenage mother who lives with a meth-amphetamine addict who at fourteen repeatedly raped Ann resulting in two abortions. Ann is a severe asthmatic, small, skinny, has jagged cut hair and constantly wears a hooded sweatshirt to shroud her features. Carolyn Greer a fellow mushroom picker who lives in a van in the North Fork camp-ground is the only person she has that even approaches being a friend.

North Fork was once a relatively prosperous logging town but has been in decline for a number of years due to environmental concerns meaning that many off the loggers are unemployed, listless and desperate for an upturn. Guterson's imagery gives his audience a clear sense of his setting, the landscape is almost tangible and the reader can almost smell the aroma of the forest and the desperation in its inhabitants.

However, the real strength of this book is the characterisation of the four main characters, Ann, Carolyn, Father Collins and a former logger called Tom Cross. All are deeply flawed. Ann has been subjected to an abusive where she was raped and has taken a cocktail of drugs, including magic mushrooms or psilocybin, to cope with the trauma. Carolyn is a non-believer who is mouthy and exploitive whereas Father Collins is fairly newly qualified as a priest and is struggling with his own calling and sexual desires in a mildewing parish. Tom Cross is an ex-logger who now works as a prison officer whose bullying of his wimpish son led to the latter having an accident which left him a quadriplegic. Tom curses God but feels guilt for his son's accident and is desperate for a measure of redemption becoming in the process an unlikely believer.

Despite what on the face of it appears a rather gloomy subject matter there is also a certain wry humour dotted within the book which made me smile. In particular the author takes a rather tongue in cheek dig at the resultant commercialism that enters the scene along with greater numbers of followers with it's accompanying trinkets and Catholic memorabilia. Ann reports that the Virgin wants a church built in the forest and ministry commenced by the faithful whilst church leaders who scrutinize Ann's story have already decided that she is a fraud. Ann wants the greedy to turn over a new leaf but is unable to see that those closest to her are also guilty of that sin.

However, Guterson successfully manages to skirt the question of truth or fraud but instead focuses on the persistence and perhaps even need of faith in modern times, the limits of human reason measured against spiritual yearning.

I have a few minor quibbles with this book, the use of the word "nigger" in one section and the lack of quotation marks for dialogue, but overall I thoroughly enjoyed this novel. The story is told with passion and readers whatever their beliefs will be able to relate to the feelings that it inspires even to those, who like myself, aren't particularly religious at all. show less

I picked this up because I loved [b:Snow Falling on Cedars|77142|Snow Falling on Cedars|David Guterson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1479863528l/77142._SY75_.jpg|1677615]. It was quite a bit of a let down compared to "Snow", but I liked it OK. Mainly because I was interested in people who claim to have had visions of Mary. It's a very strange book that kept me wondering what Guterson was trying to do. The absence of quotation marks certainly didn't help the reading experience. What is that all about?! I threw out a Cormac McCarthy book for that reason.

Set in the once prosperous forestry area of North Fork in damp north-west America, this novel is about places that are down on their heel and the people who live there. Ann, who has the visions of the Virgin Mary, has been abused and run away from home as a young teenager. Carolyn is staying on the North Fork campsite and, like Ann, collecting mushrooms for cash, has a campervan, wants to go south for the winter and is sceptical of visions. The local vicar is newly appointed and disappointed with the damp parish he has been sent to. He longs for a church that doesn't smell of damp and is troubled by sexual fantasies in his static caravan home. Tom is also troubled. A former forestry worker, he now works in North Fork's main employer, show more the prison. He is separated from his family following an accident that left his son paralysed. The constant in this novel is the rain and the deep, green and damp forest. I found there was too much theology in the second half of this novel, once the investigating priest has arrived to authenticate or not Ann's visions. Thousands of people turn up to see Ann and hope for miracles and North Fork's fortunes are suddenly reversed. Is the message about religion and capitalism? Without some of the discussion about religion this would have been a more satisfying read for me as the story is excellent and the characters well drawn and there are funny moments. show less

The style of writing was a bit of a revelation. In a lesser writer the lack of punctuation and capitalization would have been a disaster, but Guterson turned it to a graceful flow of thought, revealing a deeply feeling novel of faith and beauty.

I was intrigued by this book because of the subject matter. I lived in Conyers and indeed even knew the lady who saw the Virgin Mary back in the 1990s. I wanted to see what this author's take on it was. This novel is about so much more than a young girl who has visions, however. It's mostly the story of an economically depressed town and some of the people who live there, who are trying to do what they can in a bad situation. When Ann sees her visions, it's interesting to see how people react, both believers and nonbelievers. The author does not really present an opinion as to whether or not the visions are real. I learned a good bit about how the Catholic church handles such things, and it prompted me to do my own research regarding show more our local experiences. The book did drag a bit, and if I hadn't had some distant experience with the subject matter, I don't know if I would have finished the book. show less

Jag tyckte boken var ligger mycket i tiden, handlingen är intressant och jag tycker om komplicerade personligheter och därför gillade jag flera personer i boken.
Guterson använder sig av mycket levande naturbeskrivningar, vilket gör att själva miljön där handlingen utspelas sig känns mycket rätt , och nästan trovärdigt.

A close, damp, green, cynical, and very real recounting of a young woman's hallucinating vision of the Blessed Virgin in a rain forest in the Pacific Northwest. The most telling part is the speed with which the faithful gather for this purportedly concrete manifestation. The use of chat rooms and Web forums leads to a camper city forming overnight on the site.

Guterson is genuine, vivid, and unblinking in portraying the various players. And the cupidity - both in its lustful and avaricious meanings - shows through in this closely- and well-observed story.

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