Keeping Faith (by Jodi Picoult)

(Amazon UK link)

I know that a book by Jodi Picoult is likely to be quite a tense read, difficult to put down. But I was still a bit surprised to learn that it’s been over six years since I picked up ‘Keeping Faith’ at the local church book sale. That’s a long time to be on my to-read shelf…

It’s a long book, too, over 450 pages. But I have finished reading it in just three days. The writing is excellent, the story gripping, and I had no idea where the plot was going, or how it would end. 

Mariah is the main protagonist, and the prologue - dated August 10th 1999 - is told by her, in the first person. She comes across as a very well-organised person, who has set aside different days for the various things she has to do. This isn’t because she’s rigid, however. She does it so that she gets everything done, without forgetting. She gives the impression of being happy in her marriage, and mostly content in her life. 

When we first meet her, she’s had quite a frustrating day with several of her plans changed. She’s with her seven-year-old daughter Faith, and they go on a brief visit to Mariah’s mother Millie. Millie is clearly very close to Faith, and looks after her when Mariah is working. She lives just a couple of miles away. After their visit, Mariah is due to take Faith to her ballet class, only to realise that her daughter has forgotten her leotard. So they take a detour back to their house… and disturb Mariah’s husband Colin in a very compromising situation. 

Sometimes prologues are set a long time before the main story; sometimes they relate to something later on in the book. But this one is chronologically just before the rest of the book; I’m not sure why it was a prologue rather than the first chapter. The rest of the book is divided in two parts, labelled ‘Old Testament’ and ‘New Testament’, which rather puzzled me; I still don’t know quite why, although it does instantly demonstrate that there’s going to be a religious element to the book.

Mariah continues to narrate at first, describing some events in her past, and also talking about what has just happened. Faith is so disturbed by her father leaving that she doesn’t speak for four days. Millie suggests a circus trip, but although that seems to be a good idea, it ends in near disaster. And it’s clear that Mariah berates herself regularly for not paying enough attention to her daughter. She mentions that, seven years earlier, she was sent to a secure psychiatric hospital due to serious depression, although she doesn’t like to talk about it. 

As the book progresses, there are many different viewpoints, including (sometimes) Mariah in the third person rather than the first. It could have been confusing or annoying, but I thought it worked very well. And the story is intriguing. Faith starts talking to what seems to be an imaginary friend, someone whom she calls her ‘guard’ at first. She sees a child psychiatrist, to try to help her understand this, and together the adults realise that she’s seeing God, not (as I had thought) a guardian angel.

And yet, Faith has been brought up in an entirely non-religious way. Nobody had ever talked to her about God. Her father is a lapsed Episcopalian, and Mariah a non-practising Jew. So when she starts quoting Scripture, and mentioning incidents in the past which she could not have known about, Mariah becomes quite worried.

At the same time, an atheist TV presenter called Ian is travelling around the country debunking what he sees as Christian hoaxes - statues crying, visions, and so on. And when it appears that Faith is not just seeing visions but performing miracles of healing, he is determined to oust her...

There are a lot of minor characters: rabbis, priests, and many medical professionals who spend time with Faith and try to determine what is going on. It could have been tedious, and I did have a hard time telling some of them apart. But in Jodi Picoult’s hands the story becomes more and more intriguing, with quite a bit of low-key tension. And when Faith starts showing the ‘stigmata’ (best known in St Francis of Assisi) her father and others become concerned that she is being abused, possibly by her mother. 

Much of the story takes place as both Colin and Mariah prepare for a court case to determine custody of Faith, each believing that they can provide a better home for her. So there are legal professionals involved too. Everything feels very authentic; the author did her research very well, and presents the different scenarios authentically, but without me feeling that I was being deliberately educated.

As the book progressed I became uncertain who I could trust, as I'm sure I was intended to. Was Mariah an ‘unreliable’ narrator? Was Faith being manipulated in some way? Was Colin’s new home going to be better for Faith? Was she really having visions of God and doing miracles? And whose side was Ian on…? I found it quite stressful in places, imagining all kinds of different possibilities, but never so much that I had to put the book down. 

The climax of the story - the court case and the judge's eventual decision - was, I thought, very well done. I thought the judge a well-drawn and likeable character, and I thought the ending entirely satisfying, even though not all threads were tied up. But then there was an extra short section which opened up new questions. I assume this was deliberate, to leave some options open for the readers to make their own decisions. The point is made that people see things in different ways, and that everyone is entitled to their own beliefs. But I would have liked a bit more closure. 

Still, if you like this kind of character-based psychological thriller that isn’t too tense, I would definitely recommend this. 

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