After our fifteen-year-old daughter Hillary died of congenital heart disease in 1995, a friend told us “She is not dead, she’s still alive.” Even though we understood that her intent was to comfort us, both my husband and I found these remarks misguided, at best, and hurtful, at worst . . .
I always open a novel that includes Peoples Temple as part of the plot with trepidation. How will they use it? Will they get it right? At the same time, I always open a Jane Smiley book with anticipation. A great storyteller, she also creates wonderful characters . . .
I first read E. M. Forster’s A Passage to India after seeing the David Lean movie in 1984, just eight years after the appearance of Edward Said’s groundbreaking book Orientalism. I recently did the works in reverse order—I read the book, then saw the movie. Almost four decades from the first appearance of Said’s book, I am a little embarrassed to say that I still enjoyed a novel about the “Exotic East.”
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Author Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute. Archives
December 2021
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