The Visionist by Rachel Urquhart
My rating: 4/5 cats
this is a lovely and haunting novel that takes place in a shaker community in massachusetts in 1842. polly is a fifteen-year-old girl who has endured years of poverty and abuse at the hands of her father silas, who has managed to drive their farm into the ground. her younger brother ben was left developmentally damaged after silas tried to drown him when ben was just a baby, and their mother is resigned to her lot, having been impregnated and tricked into marriage when she was only thirteen, after silas murdered her well-off and good-natured father in order to obtain his farm. after his death, the farm fell into disrepair, and the family has been suffering under the drunken fists of silas ever since.
one night, polly decides to take matters into her own hands and escape with her family. during this escape, she accidentally sets the house on fire, with silas inside of it.
her mother rouses herself from her emotional stupor long enough to bring polly and ben to the nearby shaker community, and leave them there for sanctuary, before she heads off into her own uncertain future.
the story is told in three alternating character-segments: polly, sister charity, and simon pryor, the man charged with determining the cause of the fire under the direction of a horrible man who has had a hold over him since they were both very young. but as their narratives flow together, circumstantial parallels emerge, and common experiences of sacrifice and suffering and family bonds surface as this narrative converges into a single glowing hot point.
the shakers do not believe in the value of family ties. in the shaker belief, all members forge one large family of faith which transcends biology. the sexes are separated, so when polly and ben are brought to the community, they are immediately separated, and are not allowed to interact, because males and females do not mingle, to prevent unseemly indiscretions.
for polly, this is unacceptable, because she has taken a maternal role towards ben ever since the incident that left him more or less dependent upon her and her mother in nearly all aspects of his life. she submits to her new surroundings because she has to, but she tries to make opportunities to see ben, despite the scrutiny this places her under in the eyes of the believers.
this scrutiny only intensifies once polly begins to experience episodes that the shakers interpret as those of a visionist; one who has a direct link to the holy mother and reveals her holy messages in mystical fits. when her father began to come to her in the night, polly coped by going away inside her head and being comforted by visions of angels and these dissociative episodes manifest once more when she is provoked in the shaker community. most of the shakers begin to revere her, but there are some who have doubts that her behavior is that of a true visionist, and are jealous of her apparent favor.
sister charity, however, befriends polly. she herself has been inexplicably marked with a sudden skin condition that has also been interpreted in a number of ways, the result of which has left her largely isolated within the community. sister charity is a true believer, and she trusts in polly unconditionally, and becomes an ally during polly’s rough transition to the cloistered life.
the shakers are, of course, known for their modesty, simplicity, and austerity, but to polly, coming from a situation where she was cold, hungry, and abused, the shaker community is actually an improvement in her living conditions, which is one of those funny-sad ironies. i don’t think anyone except polly’s mother ever left the community better dressed than when they arrived.
and despite entering the fold with less physical purity than the believers, polly seems to have a mind that is more innocent.
“…when you prove yourself a good believer, you shall have your own set of clothes, made for you and no one else. Why, the sisters will even make you a cap, for you are comely and of an age when your hair and the nape of your neck could distract the brethren.”
Polly put her hand to her head. How strange these Shakers were! Did they not have more to concern them than the attraction between a boy and a girl? She had never before given a single thought to her hair or the nape of her neck. No one where she came from ever so much as glanced her way.
her life has not allowed for the luxury of flirtation or romantic prospects, and what her father has put her through has cauterized any lustful inclinations. her day-to-day before this had been about survival, and the nape of her neck was the least of her concerns.
it is all about perspective.
while simon begins to explore the origins of the fire, and becomes obsessed with her family, unexpected difficulties begin to threaten polly’s acceptance within the community, and the narrative drives towards a conclusion that will leave every character changed.
this is an enveloping story of the foundations and limitations of faith and characters who realize that they have sacrificed everything at the altar of a God intent on convincing us that we must pay for our alleged sins by depriving ourselves of the one thing that might save us: love. and women broken by the toil of their difficult lives, toil that brought the years on fast for women the world over and it is these character-parallels that i responded to the most; how there are commonalities in unexpected places, and i really felt for each of them, and their respective burdens.
this review is probably too long and tedious, but the book is really lovely, and a fine piece of historical fiction.
