Altar Music

A Novel

by Christin Lore Weber

Scribner, 249 pp., $23

In a family saga reminiscent of D.H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow, Christin Lore Weber’s first novel explores the places where spirituality, sexuality, and church restrictions intersect for three generations of Catholic women. A former nun, Weber casts much of the book’s attention on Elise Pearson, an adolescent piano prodigy who forgoes assured secular success for a mysteriously compelling life in the convent. “God will not be outdone in generosity” is a justification often invoked by the novel’s clergy for the relatively small worldly sacrifices they make. What Elise discovers, however, is that cloistered life forces a person to ignore the very fruits of that generosity. The insight is not a new one, to be sure, but occasionally it finds an eloquent voice in Weber’s porcelain prose. Unfortunately, Altar Music is too delicate. We are too often immersed in the orchestral complexities of northern Minnesota’s flora and fauna at the sake of receiving key character development. The revelations fall fast and furious near novel’s end, but they remain wholly unaffecting, like so many flat notes.

This article appears in April 14 • 2000.

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