Trust me. In spite of a terrible title that makes it sound like a tawdry bodice-ripper, Unfinished Desires by Gail Godwin is a wonderful, layered novel of girls and women, friendship, loyalty and betrayal. Also, adolescent longing, spiritual yearning, thwarted dreams and long memories. No wonder Godwin couldn’t come up with a more appealing title, although I’m leaning toward “The Reckoning of the Red Nun” or “At Mount Saint Gabriel’s.”
Mount Saint Gabriel’s is a Catholic girls’ school in the North Carolina mountains, and near the turn of this century, Mother Suzanne Ravenel, 85 and blind, is dictating a history of the school in a tape recorder at the behest of “old girls,” her former students. The nun was once a student, too, so there are her schooldays and friends to revisit, including her writing of “The Red Nun,” a play about the school’s founding.
More troubling, though, is how she will recall “the toxic year” of 1951-52, when Mother Malloy came to teach the ninth-grade class ruled over by Tildy Stratton and her chosen friends. Tildy is the niece of Ravenel’s best friend, who died young, leaving behind a twin sister (Tildy’s mom) who detests Ravenel. Tildy’s new best friend, orphaned Chloe, is the daughter of another “old girl” as well as a cousin.
Such family relationships complicate the already entangled plot and timelines. As in such previous novels as A Southern Family and Father Melancholy’s Daughter, Godwin is guilty of trying to make too many angels dance on the head of a pin. The book sprawls and meanders; it is, as my friend Pre reported, “dense, dense, dense.”
But we agree that perseverance pays off as Tildy’s revival of “The Red Nun” brings revelation and reckoning to all involved. Yes, the male characters are shadows next to their fully rounded female counterparts, and are duly relegated to supporting roles. Sisterhood, in all its forms, remains the focus in this rewarding tale.
I am not Catholic, nor did I ever go to boarding school. But Godwin’s fine, nuanced writing and sense of place, combined with my own memories of summer camp and college, made me feel like an “old girl” pondering her revisionist history of Mount Saint Gabriel’s.
Open Book: I borrowed Unfinished Desires (Random House) from the library and returned it on time.
On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever 
I enjoy reading books that is structured as a recollection or recounting. To me it is so much more complicated that anything happening in real time. It allows your protagonist to have had reflection, and also allowed them to brew and stew over things. I’m not sure about reading something this dense, but you have piqued my interest! I’ll have to give it some more research!
Dear Nancy Pate: A friend forwarded me your fine and thoughtful review of my latest novel. Let me tell you about that title! The whole time I was writing the book (three years, going on four) it was THE RED NUN: A TALE OF UNFINISHED DESIRES. It was THE RED NUN in my publishing contract; it was THE RED NUN in my heart. My sister-in-law went all the way to Estonia to bring me back a certain icon of a red nun. Then, when the book was alreaday in production, my publishers began pleading with me to get rid of the nun part. They said my old readers would buy the book whatever its title, but new readers would be turned off. “Too many people have memories of nuns hitting them with rulers.” And so…I conceded. My brother shouted: “You caved!” In the trade paperback edition of UNFINISHED DESIRES, due out in 2010, there is an interview by some of my characters with me. Be sure and take a look! Mother Ravenel herself rakes me over for not practicing “Holy Daring” when I let that title be changed. I reply disingenuously: “Well, maybe I was practicing “Holy Cunning.” But she knows, and you know—and I know—the truth. Keep up the good work! Gail Godwin
Wow! I’m famous! I got a mention in your blog!
Yes, I loved the sense of place. Having attended summer camp in Black Mountain for many years and having just returned from a NCWN workshop at Warren-Wilson, I was left in a swoon over her descriptions of a region to which I have a deep emotional attachment recently rekindled. Loved it!
But now I have a question about another aspect of the book. What did you make of the Dickens references? Having paid Absolutely No Attention in high school and taking no positive action to capture such knowledge as an adult, I am ignorant of (almost) all things Dickens. I can stretch an explanation on limited knowledge, but wonder what you think: why was he there?