The Annunication of Francesca Dunn: Book Review No. 1

Since reading is one of the main things I do, I've decided to throw in some book reviews.  This is my journal, after all, and if I leave out what I'm reading, it's really not my journal at all.  I tried a reading journal a couple of months back, but it was too much of an effort for me to keep up with TWO journals and I let that one slide.  I need time for reading, after all.  I'll probably move those entries, from the beginning of the summer, over here eventually.  But for now I'll just work on what I'm reading at present.

The Annunciation of Francesca Dunn by Janis Hallowell (2004) is the tale, told through the voices of four of its major characters, of an ordinary middle school-aged girl who is transformed into a Virgin Mother for our age.  The most fully drawn of the four narrators is the homeless man whose schizophrenic delusions, usually originating in what he believes is a heightened, almost mystical, sense of smell, bring Francesca to the attention of the public.  Francesca's lonely and unsurprisingly self-absorbed best friend and precoccupied paleobotanist mother complete the picture gradually; we never really understand either of them, but their reactions are sharp and focused by the end of the novel.   Francesca herself is less convincingly portrayed than any of her entourage.  The source of her detachment and disturbing illness is unclear, and her own thoughts and emotions, as she is put through the paces of public sainthood, adored as the Mother of the Saviour and subsequently reviled for a supposed abortion, are seldom articulated.  She is observant but not insightful.  That others are even less so is driven home by tragedy at the end.  It's a quick read but ultimately an unsatisfying one.

Henry Ossawa Tanner's Annunciation (1898)