America is an increasingly strange place these days, but perhaps the strangeness was always lurking in the things that made its culture seem familiar, even comforting, to those who were reared elsewhere. Take, for example, the use of the word “God”, who is always blessing America. He is not much invoked by politicians on this side of the Atlantic (except in Ulster, where He also did a great job), because we would find that specious. Nor do we have religious novelists, like the great Marilynne Robinson, who writes from a place of belief and teaches theology in her spare time. Even the bloody sacramentalism of Cormac McCarthy can feel religious, if only by opposition.
Like Robinson, Joy Williams is acquainted with the devil and she knows what it is to be…
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Guardian Weekly (Digital) - 1 Issue, 23 August 2024