The weakness of the central situation affects other aspects of the book. Much of the novel is given over to Nathaniel’s wife, Catherine; his daughter, Sarah; and his son, Ezekiel. But because Nathaniel and Arthur’s relationship is discovered early on — and hardly develops — these characters have little to react to. Catherine’s sadness manifests as an overwhelming lethargy, and she sleeps through many pages. Sarah hardens against her father and finally challenges him by attempting to lead a second revival in Cana (this is an awkwardly joined and underwritten plot point). Ezekiel is attracted to women’s clothing and turns mute. The perspectives of Arthur’s wife, Anne, and his daughter, Martha, which might offer complicating contrasts, do not fully engage Conley’s attention.
I can see what Conley was aiming for. There is promise in the idea of two families growing and warping around the secret of queerness, in such a time and place. Yet its development here is circular and shallow. This is how Conley conveys Catherine’s realization of her husband’s sexuality: “She will not even think to herself what she now suspects to be true, for it is unthinkable; it is unknowable, impossible. She has never heard of such a thing, not really, only rumors of court cases with that horrible word, ‘sodomy.’” Later, when she confronts Nathaniel, Conley writes: “Shock. She has shocked him.”
This trite flatness is typical. When Conley does try for an effect, his figurative language is often confused: “Behind every facade, I imagine I can see the secret life beneath it, just waiting for someone to open its doors.” Other times, it’s silly: “Sarah feels as though her head has been stabbed with a spear.” And sometimes it’s both: “Within the relentless rags of time, they will require diversions.”
These are symptoms of a larger problem with the prose. Sensibly, Conley doesn’t attempt to recreate the speech of 18th-century Puritans; anachronism has to be forgiven because authenticity is intrinsically beyond reach. The issue with his dialogue is that it’s undifferentiated, every character sounding the same. And what can’t be forgiven is his profligacy with verbal cliché: “You should have thought of that earlier”; “Arthur can hardly believe his luck”; “the logical next step.” Crawling across this prose desert, the reader pants, thirst unslaked, for a pleasurable sentence, a fresh image, a dynamic scene, a single sign of genuine life.
