Southern Fried Sushi is a sermonizing
novel. This isn’t a criticism, per se. Sewell’s Black Beauty, hailed as a classic, is sermonizing. Dante’s classic
poem The Divine Comedy is
sermonizing. For some Christians, such reads can be edifying, serving to reinforce
one’s faith. For the Christian like me who prefers subtlety, however, these
authors' approaches are, at times, too preachy.
In
Spinola’s defense, she can write. Her narrative is particularly good. The
story itself is well plotted, coherent, and touching. Characters are well
defined. Several scenes moved me emotionally, including, admittedly, a few of
these sermonizing scenes. And that’s what storytelling is all about. But because
the protagonist struggles with her disbelief while her new-found friends offer
answers to dispel her reservations, sometimes lengthy answers, these numerous
scenes serve to address the average nonbeliever’s misconceptions about the
faith too blatantly for my blood.
While
I can sympathize with a writer inclined to testify to her faith or make the
case for Christianity, I’m not this novel’s intended audience since I much
prefer a story with a moral rather than a sermon posing as a story. Having said
that, I recognize, as a writer who has read several books on storytelling, every
good story, religious or otherwise, makes a moral argument.
It
ultimately boils down to the individual reader’s sensibilities. For example, I’ve
read more than a few novels written by Christians who achieved the same objective
in ways I found far more tactful, tasteful. Modern Christian writers such as
Lisa Sampson and Tosca Lee, what few books I’ve read of theirs (I highly
recommend Lee’s novels The Legend of
Sheba and Iscariot), never stop
their stories to explore the minutia of their faith. Rather their stories offer
a more sophisticated approach by way of hints and suggestions. Their moral
argument never hits you over the head.
Indeed,
one of the reasons I so love the timeless novels of C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and
George MacDonald is because these guys were writers first. Tolkien allegedly
wrote in a letter, ‘The Lord of the Rings
began implicitly Catholic and ended explicitly so.’ Yet at no point throughout
the trilogy is there a single reference to Catholicism or Christianity or The Bible.
I
don’t doubt these men’s faith was of the upmost importance to them in their personal
lives, but when it came to their novels, they didn’t compromise their art for
the sake of a sermon. Instead, their faith shined through as a result of their sincerity
and devotion to their writing craft. Their themes were woven into their stories
in thoughtful, suggestive, and never obtrusive ways.
Another
good example would be Graham Greene’s exquisite novel The Power and the Glory. Greene (another Catholic) never pauses to
remind you of the historical horrors of an atheist socialist who hates the
church, rounding up priests and executing them in the Mexican state of Tabasco
in the 1930s. Instead, the moral argument is made clear by way of the story
itself and the poignant scenes throughout which focus on character and plot
development.
But
let’s return to Southern Fried Sushi.
Shiloh is a young, modern American woman living in Japan and working for the
Associated Press until she learns that her self-destructive mother has died.
She flies back home to Staunton, Virginia to attend the funeral. There she discovers
from her mother’s friends, most of whom are simple Christians with southern
hospitality oozing from their ears, that Shiloh’s mother had found religion and
devoted her remaining years to helping the deaf and blind.
So
far so good, as they say. Over the course of getting her bearings in a new town
and attending her mother’s funeral, Shiloh befriends these hayseeds with
reservations. Sure. They’re gracious, generous, and apparently sincere. And she’s
humbled by their hospitality. At the same time, she’s irritated by their
religiosity. She has convinced herself, as most modern, nonreligious people do,
that faith is a crutch, most likely a fiction, and that she can succeed well on
her own without relying on some pie in the sky belief.
Meanwhile,
Shiloh discovers, by way of phone, text messages, and Skype, that back in Japan
her fiancé Carlos, a fiery Spaniard, is cheating on her. We as readers already
know Shiloh, pressed for time, plagiarized an article for the Associated Press
before boarding her flight from Japan to Virginia. In the interim, her boss back
in Japan finds out about her unethical blunder and fires her.
Without
a job in Japan, she has no valid visa for returning there. Now she’s stuck with
all these backwoods rednecks in Staunton, in mounting credit card debt, unemployed,
and bucking at these native southerners’ lack of sophistication and poor
grammar.
Despite
Shiloh’s smug exterior, however, anxiety has set in. As she prepares to sell
her late mother’s house, utility bills accumulate. She needs a job, maybe two.
But the prospect of employment at a local Barnes & Noble and then,
concurrently, as a waitress at a local restaurant, are such blows to her ego,
such steep steps down from her career as an AP writer, she initially feels
humiliated and ashamed.
Gradually,
after a series of scenes intended to address the modern secularist’s
reservations regarding Christianity, Shiloh gradually discovers her
misconceptions were only that. Indeed, as she explores The Bible, she realizes the faith makes sense. She needs God in her
life.
It’s
a touching story, with a balanced amount of well composed detail. Apart from
the sermonizing, my only other complaint is with the format. My Kindle version
had errors. (I blame the conversion software.) Words would be pressed together
in places, with no spaces between them. At other times, lines would drop
arbitrarily midway across the page and resume on a line below it. Additionally,
several times dialogue between two people would share the same paragraph.
Such
interruptions drew me out of the moment every time. However, excluding these
software hiccups and the sermons about Christianity via elongated conversations
and testimonials, and instead reminded of the emotionally powerful moments and
solid narrative, I give this novel four out of five stars. Rated PG
