THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, March 26, 1995 TAG: 9503230533
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J2 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Book Review
SOURCE: BY AUDREY KNOTH
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
MOLLY FLANAGAN AND THE HOLY GHOST
MARGARET SKINNER
Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill. 242 pp. $17.95.
TWELVE-YEAR-OLD Molly Flanagan has a problem with her eyes. Yet in some ways, she sees people and events more incisively than do the grown-ups around her.
Margaret Skinner's second novel, Molly Flanagan and the Holy Ghost, gracefully portrays a young girl of insight and imagination. The book, written by an adult for a grown-up audience, conveys the creativity of youth without seeming false or contrived. It's a state of mind that readers will remember from their own lives and enjoy.
The novel is set in the mid-1950s in Skinner's native Memphis, where Molly lives with her family. All her life, the girl's vision has played tricks on her.
``Always in the mirror Molly's eyes looked normal, but her ways of seeing were something like the work of a bumbling photographer, either two prints of the same negative. . . or a haze of two different things at once.''
Her vision symbolizes a struggle for her religious allegiance that has long taken place between Molly's godmother and her grandmother.
``Like pouring holy water into a font, Byrd, the dutiful godmother, filled Molly with the great drama and mystery of Catholicism; Grandmother Willie worked prodigiously to save her from the same Roman Church, a thing so bedeviled and foreign it was governed by an Italian posing as Christ on earth. She imagined. . . Byrd and Willie (pulling) her side from side in a religious tug-of-war, her eyeballs bursting - pop, pop - just as they split her down the middle.''
Caught between the two, Molly has formed her own religious vision. She places her faith in the Holy Ghost, rather than in Jesus or the Holy Father.
``The Holy Ghost didn't promise happiness, so the loss of it. . . didn't start you wondering if there was a Holy Ghost like it did with God or Jesus. Instead, the Holy Ghost was there inside you opening up small windows so you could understand what in hell was going on. . . ''
The book chronicles the dramas that make up Molly's daily life. Some are great - whether the family can afford an operation to fix the girl's eyes and if there's more than meets the eye to the quarreling family across the street. Others are small - will Molly make it through her dreaded piano recital?
Along the way, the reader gets to know Molly's affectionate, poetry-loving father; her intelligent, charismatic older brother; her changeable mother, who is obsessed with ridding the neighborhood of pigeons; and a host of other well-drawn characters.
Skinner's exceptional writing raises all of it above the quotidian. She exactly captures the way an imaginative child embroiders the smallest aspects of life to form a rich inner vision. There's the time, for example, that Molly boards a city bus.
``Dropping a token into the slot, Molly felt conspicuous in her accordion-pleated skirt. Like a fan, her skirt opened and closed with her every movement. She imagined it playing `Lady of Spain'. . . The width of the pleats ranged from very large accordion down to tiniest concertina. . . She bobbled from pole to pole hearing the `Beer Barrel Polka.' She sat down, certain that the other passengers had been startled by the wailing discordancy of the flatted pleats.''
Molly Flanagan and the Holy Ghost serves as a sequel of sorts to Skinner's first novel, Old Jim Canaan; some of the new book's characters are descended from a character in her previous work. But it isn't necessary to be familiar with the first novel to enjoy this one.
Skinner is that rare grown-up who cannot only remember, but describe, the unfettered imagination of a bright and dreamy youngster. MEMO: Audrey Knoth is a free-lance writer and executive director of a
public relations firm in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Margaret Skinner
by CNB