While cleaning a statue of Jesus in a London church, Mary-Margaret has an accident. Her head is bleeding, or is the blood coming from another source? The upheaval caused by this dubious miracle has strange and terrible consequences for the pastor and parishoners of this urban parish.
Kay's writing is fluid and persuasive, and this novel reads quickly. I was especially impressed by her portrait of Mary-Margaret's mother, desperately obese and homebound, flawed and deeply human. Still, the ultimate point of the story seems to be to answer the fundamental question: how are we to believe in a God that allows terrible things to happen? As one of her characters points out, humans have been asking this question for millenia and still haven't come up with an answer. Kay doesn't either, but her character's efforts to understand are moving.
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