FICTION
‘Noah’s Wife’
By Lindsay Starck
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
$27, 400 pages
AUTHOR APPEARANCE
Lindsay Starck, 7:15 p.m. Jan. 27. Free. Georgia Center for the Book, DeKalb County Public Library, 215 Sycamore St., Decatur. 404-370-3070, ext. 2285, www.georgiacenterforthebook.org.
Noah, the original doomsday prepper, might be one of the most multifaceted heroes in the Hebrew Scriptures. In three short chapters of Genesis, the tight-lipped patriarch plays carpenter, ship’s captain, meteorologist, vintner and, briefly, animal hoarder. His three sons get shoutouts every few verses, yet his spouse is mentioned only in passing. She and her daughters-in-law are never even given a name.
Novelist Lindsay Starck makes a similar choice in “Noah’s Wife,” withholding the title character’s name for the duration of her charming debut. The clever, if sometimes exasperating, narrative transplants elements of the ancient flood story to modern America. Rather than rehashing Noah’s predicament beat by beat, the novel drifts between satirical remix of biblical tropes and waterlogged allegory of misguided faith.
Starck’s Noah is a peppy, joyful minister who falls for a seasick photographer on a whale-watching cruise. He can read her “as easily as one of his psalms.” She yearns to share his gusto for life.
The young bride isn’t fazed by the rain on their wedding day, calling it a positive omen. Her optimism wavers when the husband gets assigned to a new congregation in a gloomy, distant backwater where it’s been raining for as long as anyone can remember. This mysterious and localized climate crisis evokes an Old Testament plague. Townspeople “divide their lives into two sections: the time that came before the rain and the time that will follow it.” Unending storms have nearly beaten the life out of their once-spirited village. Shops have closed. The mayor and police force have fled. Rising waters threaten to submerge the biggest tourist attraction, a 200-animal zoo. No wonder the previous preacher drowned himself.
In a series of vignettes, some more interesting than others, Starck introduces an eccentric cast of locals determined not to surrender the town. Adam, the fatalistic zookeeper, “dreams he hears the hoofbeats and roars of beasts long gone.” Mauro, the superstitious owner of the general store, has lost his faith in God. The same can be said for his neighbors, who question how any higher power could ignore their prayers for mercy.
Despite the palpable cynicism, these holdouts fall in line under Mrs. McGinn, the calculating head of the town council and the most mesmerizing personality in the book. If altruistic Noah and his adoring wife read as a bit flat in some chapters, Mrs. McGinn’s idiosyncrasies add fear and curiosity to the novel. Even after four marriages that ended in divorce, she fixates on getting her daughter hitched. Her loyalty to the battered township runs deeper than civic pride. “She knows that many of the town’s former inhabitants … would tell her that it would be wiser to give up on this place, to pack up her bags and try her hand at life in a place that isn’t forever haunted by its own past, that needn’t live within the shadow of its former glory. Who among us is not haunted by her past? … Who among us is as bright or as full or as strong as she was, or as she could be?”
These probing questions about misguided hope and perseverance shape the novel and help keep it anchored as more characters and subplots come aboard.
Soon after their move, the minister and his wife begin to fathom how dire the situation really is. Regardless, Noah tackles repairing the rundown church sanctuary with boyish enthusiasm: “What’s the point of a project if it doesn’t have a touch of the impossible to it?” he says. His birdlike wife subtly questions his choices. Chapters focusing on her longtime best friend, Dr. Yu, disclose that before meeting Noah, she didn’t attend church — and perhaps doesn’t believe in God. Her husband is her religion. With this in mind, the author’s choice to deny the protagonist a first name makes more sense. She is Noah’s wife, full stop.
No doubt, some readers may do exactly that: stop reading due to irritation with the leading couple. The erratic syntax doesn’t help. Logistically, the name device makes Dr. Yu’s already unpersuasive chapters sound more clunky and artificial. Back in soggy town, Noah’s zeal for rescuing his lost flock wilts at the first spiteful confrontation with Mrs. McGinn.
Starck elevates the urgency by introducing a new threat: A government meteorologist brings a dire prediction about impending storms. Hearing a flood warning may not be so shocking in a Noah story, but a crisis at the zoo delivers both giggles and chills to the second act. The town’s slapstick shuffle to relocate endangered zebras, chimpanzees and penguins evoke the satirical work of Yann Martel.
These developments are smart choices on the part of the author, who serves as editor-in-chief at Carolina Quarterly and teaches creative writing in Chapel Hill, N.C. “Noah’s Wife” emerged from a series of character sketches, she says, which sheds light on the oddly paced vignettes and gaps in momentum. The indulgences in dreary subplots might imply that this patchwork vessel isn’t seaworthy. Thankfully, the book not only stays afloat but gains steam as it reaches the farcical and engrossing climax. “Noah’s Wife” has plenty to say about knowing when to say when, taking aim at contemporary gender roles without going overboard.
About the Author
