FROM THE secular, liberal civilisation that terrorists are bent on destroying, the West has been turning religious of late. At least a small, influential part of it. The United States President, a born- again Christian, owes his elections to the Christian Right, and the same kind of organised evangelism is informing our politics too. When the Treasurer sees fit to address the 20,000-strong congregation at Hillsong, and the shadow minister for foreign affairs puts in a bid for a more Christian orientation on the part of the Opposition, we can be fairly sure that a seachange is taking place.
Kevin Rudd's plea is the much-mentioned feature article in the October issue of The Monthly. In it he argues for a different sort of Christianity from that espoused by most cheerleading fundamentalists, much to this reader's relief. Rudd's Christianity is defined by the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who, in a bid to put an end to the Holocaust, plotted against the Nazis, and met a martyr's death. His was a Christianity that harked back to pre-Constantine times, when to be a Christian was to be one of the oppressed, and Rudd believes that this is the kind of Christianity Labor should identify with.
Rudd would be pleased, then, with Luke Butler, the hero of Emma [sic] Maguire's second novel. First a word about Maguire, whose debut book, Taming the Beast, has been translated into 10 languages and made the long list for one of the English language's most heftily funded fiction awards, the EDS Dylan Thomas $100,000 prize, established for young writers. It also received special commendation in this year's Kathleen Mitchell Awards for Australian writers under 30. Her work has appeared in The Sydney Morning Herald, the Griffith Review and Britain's Observer. All of which goes to show that she's a pretty impressive writer.
Back, then, to Luke. He, too, is an early achiever. In his late 20s, he's in charge of the Northwest Youth Centre in Parramatta, an evangelist church modelled on Hillsong, but smaller and far less lacquered. Given his age and success, Luke is a minor celebrity, but each encounter with the media leaves him depleted and rattled. There is a reason for this. His dark good looks, which he is inclined to disavow, intrigue his interviewers. Where does it come from, this glamorous swarthiness? His answer is plausible: he grew up in an orphanage and doesn't know his origins.
But the tangle of truth writhes at the heart of this novel, and what is revealed is less a revelation in the biblical sense than an exposure of the dangers of repression and hypocrisy. Throughout its 298 pages the tangle, and Pastor Luke at the centre of it, are ineluctably undone.
The agent in all this is a lanky, frizzy- haired woman named Aggie, who works in the sexual health counselling service across the street from Luke's church. As monastic as Luke is (despite his knock 'em dead looks, he's managed to remain celibate) Aggie is erotically attuned. As far as sex is concerned, she's thoroughly unjudging and unshockable. The only trouble is, she's a heterosexual who's had appallingly bad luck with men.
The novel's other main character is Sydney, right now, today. There's an edginess to Maguire's prose, never forced, just right. The Parramatta street where most of the action takes place is a gritty theatre where the many issues that roil around Sydney's suburbs are played out. Sexuality, abortion, gay rights; and fundamentalism's appeal in the face of them. Loneliness and insecurity. Violence, identity and long-term psychological harm. Maguire is adept at weaving these themes into her story, fitting all the bits together, and giving them bounce and life.
Yet The Gospel According to Luke is basically a romance, a latter-day Romeo and Juliet with lashings of the Christ story, and given that sex and the emotions are Maguire's focus, here is where her talent soars. It's rare to come across sex in fiction so wittily and convincingly described: ''She was fully with him now, stroking his hair and face, whispering oh Luke oh love. He pressed his face to the thing he could not bring himself to call by any of the names he had heard used, scientific or slang. To think all those days and nights they had spent together talking and longing and arguing, and under her jeans she was hiding this wet, pulsating, terribly welcoming thing.''
We are only human, Maguire is saying, and, one way or another, Eros will prevail.
I really liked this immensely readable, highly intelligent book, but have one qualification. For all its deftness and breadth, its wisdom and evocative symbolism (Butler, the servant; Agatha, the saint), there's a whiff of the contrived about it. It's a while since I've been to Parramatta, but is across the street from an evangelical church a likely spot to set up a sexual advice service? Perhaps such a set-up exists, but fact is never an argument in aesthetics. For a novel it all seems a tad too tight. I've mentioned theatre earlier, and I often thought while reading this book what a wonderful play it would make.
Perhaps someone will take up the challenge, and set Luke and Aggie and all Maguire's sharply drawn characters in motion on the stage.
Sara Dowse is a novelist and reviewer, and lives in Sydney.
