The Confessions of Frances Godwin

The Confessions of Frances Godwin is the fictional memoir of a retired high school Latin teacher looking back on a life of trying to do her best amidst transgressions-starting with her affair with Paul, whom she later marries. Now that Paul is dead and she's retired, Frances Godwin thinks her story is over-but of course the rest of her life is full of surprises, including the truly shocking turn of events that occurs when she takes matters into her own hands after her daughter Stella's husband grows increasingly abusive. And though she is not a particularly pious person, in the aftermath of her actions, God begins speaking to her. Theirs is a deliciously antagonistic relationship that will compel both believers and nonbelievers alike. From a small town in the Midwest to the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome, The Confessions of Frances Godwin touches on the great questions of human existence: Is there something “out there” that takes an interest in us? Or is the universe ultimately indifferent?

About the Author :
Robert Hellenga was educated at the University of Michigan and Princeton University. He is a professor at Knox College in Galesburg, Illinois, and the author of the novels Snakewoman of Little Egypt, The Sixteen Pleasures, The Fall of a Sparrow, Blues Lessons, Philosophy Made Simple, and The Italian Lover. He lives in Galesburg, Illinois.

Review :
I stayed up all night with Robert Hellenga's beguiling schoolteacher-murderer and her talkative God, and will now re-read at leisure to savor this author's usual grace notes: music, recipes, learning, philosophy, and travel. The Confessions of Frances Godwin is Hellenga's most audacious fling at just about everything in our culture. Robert Hellenga is a great storyteller and a most elegant writer. The Confessions of Frances Godwin is a page-turner that made me want to linger on the page. As enjoyable as it is profound, The Confessions of Frances Godwin tackles our most unanswerable questions as only a novel can-not by answering them but by exploring the reasons why we ask in the first place. This is the sort of rare book where the familiar starts to look brand-new, and a reader comes to understand that faith is as much about how one sees as it is about what one believes. His latest novel [is] one of his best . . . Hellenga . . . is one of those writers who inspire a special kind of devotion in their readers . . . The beauty of this novel and, in fact, of all of Hellenga's work, lies in the scrupulous attention he pays to those different shapes that life takes. Like Frances, we find in their very concreteness a way of living with the uncertainty that surrounds us. Hellenga's feisty and learned narrator, who travels from the Casa di Giulietta in Verona to TruckStopUSA in Ottawa, is an entertaining guide. In this highly original novel exploring the hidden depths of one older woman, Hellenga (The Sixteen Pleasures) shows that he is a writer who deserves to be more widely known. Hellenga neatly balances the pallet trucks of the wholesale produce business with the idiosyncrasies of translating the ribald poetry of Catullus . . . Although the story ranges wide, The Confessions of Frances Godwin is firmly rooted in the culture and values of Hellenga's perfectly rendered Midwest. Hellenga creates a teacher you will wish you had studied with, and a character to remember. Gripping and unpredictable . . . . The Confessions of Frances Godwin both sums up and surpasses Hellenga's body of work. This is a story of maturity by maturity for maturity, written with subtlety, deep learning, and wisdom. One heck of a plot . . . Hellenga, the famously philosophical novelist . . . is 'inclined,' he recently wrote on his blog, 'to accept the accumulated wisdom of the ancient near East' but . . . 'can't entirely abandon the quest for some larger meaning.' It is this quest for meaning that this latest book, like much of Hellenga's work, is all about.