Secrets of Eden, by Chris Bohjalian

Secrets of Eden revolves around a terrible crime: a small-town Vermont couple, the Haywards, die violently-- the wife Alice was killed by her abusive husband George and George was first believed to be a suicide. As the story unfolds, however, questions arise about exactly how George died.

The story is told through four narrators. The first is Reverend Stephen Drew, who baptized Alice on the very day she was killed. When she emerged from the water, she said "There," a fact that, after her death, he comes to believe revealed that she knew she was going to die. His guilt leads to a crisis of faith, and he leaves town immediately after her funeral. Even before the crisis, Stephen's faith may not have been in the sturdiest condition (he describes those who rose to speak at church as needing "Prozac considerably more than they needed prayer"). We also learn that he had an affair with Alice some months previously. Through somewhat excessive foreshadowing, we know that he will become a suspect in the case.

The second narrator is the assistant DA, Catherine Benincasa, who does not like Reverend Drew and begins to suspect him ("For a minister," she says, "the guy had ice in his viens"). Benincasa never really comes alive as a character, but we do get a window into the investigation through her section of the book. The third narrator is a rather strange woman, Heather Laurent, who has written two best-selling books about angels. Her parents also died in a murder-suicide and she feels drawn to both Reverend Drew and Katie Hayward, Alice and George's teenage daughter. Heather and Stephen quickly become lovers but break up when Heather learns about Stephen's earlier affair with Alice. She too begins to suspect him in George' s death. Excerpts from Heather's books about angels are interspersed throughout Secrets of Eden, and I feel sure Bohjalian was trying to convey something through their inclusion, but I must say they did not speak to me.

The final narrator is Katie herself. Katie's voice feels the most authentic, and she is by far the most appealing character. The "surprise" ending, however, is actually rather predictable.

In our book group, members sometimes complain about the confusion shifting narrators can cause. In this case, because each narrator gets one section only, there is no confusion, but the book is also not as rich as it might have been had Bohjalian returned to each narrator after readers had gained some perspective from hearing the other characters' stories. In fact, while the mystery of the crime is resolved, I was more interested in what happened to the characters after their paths diverged--but that's not the direction Bohjalian took the story.

If you haven't read Bohjalian's earlier works, I would recommend Midwives, The Buffalo Soldier, or Before You Know Kindness over this book. If you have read Bohjalian's other books, this one may be somewhat disappointing. Despite that, it could still stimulate some good discussion at a book group.

Favorite passage:
Assume no one really knows anything that matters at all. Because, alas, we don't. All of our stories are suspect.