Little Faith

Nickolas Butler

Allen & Unwin

Otago Daily Times, July 27th 2019

Over the course of a lifetime, Lyle Hovde has watched his small Wisconsin home drift, like so many other small, rural communities, towards oblivion. Although saddened by the slow accumulation of loss, he has stopped trying to solve the problems of the world and become most at home in the quiet near the people he loves, “learning how to live more lightly, love more intensely, eat better, to read”, enjoying the slow drift of days and seasons, the company of friends and caring for his 5-year-old grandson James. Then his wayward daughter, Shiloh, moves from the family home into a nearby religious community, taking James with her.

In an attempt to remain in contact, Lyle and his wife join the congregation and watch with alarm as she falls under the influence of its charismatic young pastor, Stephen, who is convinced that James has the healing touch. Lyle’s scepticism angers Shiloh, and when James is diagnosed with diabetes, she blames her father’s lack of faith and cuts him out of her life. At first, Lyle is content to wait for her forgiveness. But when he discovers that James is suffering from regular hypoglycaemic crises that are being treated with prayer rather than medical care, he is determined to do whatever it takes to save his grandson, whatever the cost. 

The novel is inspired by real events and is dedicated to the hundreds – perhaps thousands – of children who die every year in America because the adults in their lives eschew medicine and science in favour of faith healing. But rather than condemn religion outright, Butler’s treatment of the complexities of faith is sensitive and nuanced, recognising the importance of religion at both the communal and personal levels. Lyle lost his own faith after the death of his infant son many decades before the events of the book. He has continued to attend his local church, however, held by his ties to the community and his wife’s belief for and in him, and he wishes he could capture the sense of hope and peace that so many others find through prayer.

Above all, Little Faith explores the connections that bind families and communities together through one man’s experience of love, ageing, grief and loss. Practical, self-aware, and generous of heart and mind, Lyle approaches life with a pragmatic optimism that is both admirable and deeply sympathetic. His distinctive voice, contemplative but firmly rooted in the physical world and straightforward without being simplistic, perfectly reflects this grounded nature. We are given very few details about people’s faces, for example, but the text teems with sensory detail: our first impression of Lyle is gleaned from his red faded cotton handkerchief that “smelled of his worn Wrangler blue jeans: diesel, gasoline, sawdust, the golden butterscotch candy he favoured, and the metallic tang of loose pocket change.” Butler may have successfully captured the melancholic, liminal beauty of autumn, twilight, and the relentless toll of time, a feat to which many writers aspire and few achieve, but it is Lyle who holds the novel’s heart and soul.