The Land of Decoration

The author of this remarkable book, is well named — her debut novel is concerned with religion, sin and grace. “My name is Judith McPherson. I am ten years old. On Monday a miracle happened. That is what I’m going to call it. And I did it all. It was about what Neil said about putting my head down the toilet.” Judith’s world is circumscribed by her faith, her harsh God and her devout fundamentalist father. They read the Bible every evening, gather at the Meeting Hall on Sundays and knock on the doors of the faithless in the dreadful expectation of Armageddon.

Terrified by the school bully, fearful for her father, who stands out against strikes at work, and longing for a mother she never knew, she finds solace in The Promised Land, a model she creates in her bedroom out of discarded scraps.

One night, frightened by Neil’s continuing cruelty and admonished by the voice of God, she makes a snowstorm from white cotton and shaving foam that covers the people, houses and bridges in her land of decoration. Next morning the world is white, and it’s only November.

As ‘God’s Instrument’, can she perform miracles? Will her new found power enable her to punish Neil and help her father? Or will her God-given gift prove disastrous?

As with Henry James’s What Maisie Knew, the reader sees more than Judith, her young life circumscribed by a strict, unforgiving father. We know him to be hiding behind his unyielding religion in a harsh, narrow world after his wife died giving birth to a daughter he alone must care for. We see that Neil’s cruelty is the result of a deprived upbringing.

An eloquent, unsettling and poignant portrait of a young girl searching for truth and yearning for her father’s love. The author is at the Oxford Literary Festival on Thursday.