Quiet Mountain Essays
Copyright ©, 2005
Family Issues
(book review of A Month of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister by Julie Mars)
by
Suzanne Sunshower
The original review I wrote for Julie Mars' wonderful new book, A Month of Sundays: Searching For
The Spirit And My Sister, vanished somewhere between my computer desktop and cyberspace
before it could be presented in the March issue. A Month of Sundays is a chronicle of the unique
spiritual journey Ms. Mars embraced upon the death of her beloved sister, Shirley. Ironically,
before I could pen a replacement for the missing review, I received word that my mother had died
back home in Michigan, and I was off on a cross-country road trip to the funeral of a woman (and
the meeting with a family) from whom I had essentially been estranged since I was thirteen.
Wisely, I stuffed my advance copy of A Month of Sundays into my coat pocket as I left my
Western farmstead, on the inkling that my funeral odyssey might bring a fresh perspective to my
take on this particular book. Boy, was I ever right.
The book's title refers to Ms. Mars' vow upon her sister's death to visit thirty-one churches in as
many successive Sundays, in search of the spiritual faith to which her sister clung in life and
(almost doubted) in death. Her church visiting takes her into pews populated by people of other
colors, sexual orientations, humbler backgrounds, and varying fervors of worship - some
encounters leaving her cold and others leaving her in tears. Faith was something which Mars had
known by many faces since the days of her Catholic upbringing, yet no longer embraced in the
form of organized religion.
In my original review I remember mentioning that Mars has a wonderful way of story telling, and
that's true - her prose isn't poetry but it's meaningful and expressive - yet I did not fully appreciate
the ease with which she tells her tale until I launched upon my own funerary trek. Looking
through the book in a motel room in Iowa, anxiously thinking about what might await me in
Michigan, I began to see her words describing caring for her sister (including giving her own
names to the stages of Shirley's death), and her vow to continue her search - that promise to herself
to find a great meaning or awakening - as a kind of comfort food for my own aching soul.
In her book, what Mars is really talking about is searching for solace and closure. She is looking
for the thing that will shake her loose from the shell shock of the death of her sister. To do that, she
must not only keep her vow to seek a great faith (by visiting places of worship), but she must also
re-live, analyze, reconstruct (and de-construct) the life and death of her sister and their
relationship, as well all the pain and the guilt she feels. An example: each morning she lights a
candle in memory of Shirley... In the beginning, her candle lighting for Shirley reminds the
reader less of a loved one's ritual of vigil than of a flagellation of sorts - a daily deed that reminds
Mars not to forget that she is in pain; that what she is seeking is what she fears she will forget, or
might have somehow missed. Ultimately, the reader evolves with Mars through her loss;
accompanying her through other difficult times, later in the book.
On my own road trip, I could especially relate to Mars' luck with cars. For over 900 miles, I held
my car's gear shift in fifth, lest it slip out. Mercifully, my car didn't break down on my trek to
Michigan, but I can attest that after 300 miles or so, one no longer feels a numbness in the fingers
from holding an arm outstretched. It's the kind of thing that is both pathetic and comical - and
real. Just like certain happenings in Mars' book. Real life (or is it grief?) happens even while you
are in shock, in mourning, or your car is acting up. Life goes on. I loved the moments of Mars'
'real life' that check in as we read - her friends, the junker cars, a baby being born, the broken
vacuum cleaner - this is the stuff that still makes up the lives of the people who have watched
others die, or are going to funerals, or are attending temple after a death. My mother's funeral
was on St. Patrick's Day, and as such, it was the oddest St. Patrick's Day I've ever spent. My
birthday was one week later, but I didn't ignore it because I had been to a funeral the week before
- I celebrated my life, with friends, drove my junker car around my beloved Detroit, and later
attended the Zen Buddhist temple I go to when I am home.
Like Mars, I have a hippie past (present), which explains my estrangement from my family and
their enduring belief in my estrangement from their 'middle-class' values - a simple, and yet
implausible reason for anyone younger than myself to understand. It wasn't my choice for my
family to under-value my values the way they do, but it was my choice not to live under a
constant negative judgement that was unhealthy for my personal growth and development.
Unlike Mars, I did not have the lifeline to my family that I felt Mars' sister Shirley had been for
her. Unlike Mars, I don't know what it feels like to lose that lifeline - I never had it. Still, in so
many ways, the moments in her book rang even truer to me, perusing it again in the days leading
to and after my mother's funeral.
A friend reminded me recently that even the ugly members (memories) of our families are deeply
woven into the fabric of who we are as people, and not mere parts of the experiences that shaped
us. Even if our energies were spent avoiding a particular person (or being drawn to them like
Mars was to her sister), there is a huge energy void left to fill when that person is gone. I guess
that explains why I felt as breathless after my mother's funeral as it seemed to me, from reading
Mars' book, that she felt after her sister's. Life goes on; its death that's hard to walk away from.
Everyone can relate to and enjoy Ms. Mars' fresh, new book. I encourage QME readers to pick it
up, and also to enjoy Julie Mars' last book from GreyCore Press, The Secret Keepers. GreyCore
Press is an independent, woman-owned press. A Month of Sundays can be found at most major
booksellers, and if it's not at your local favorite haunt, ask them to order it.
Ms. Julie Mars will hold book signings in New Mexico (where she lives); and, in Colorado in May;
also, New York, New Jersey, Philadelphia and Connecticut in June. Find out more from
GreyCore Press at: www.GreyCore.com
This month's QME essays are in keeping with a family memories theme. As usual at QME, souls
have been bared in these pages, please respect the truths being told by the women writing them.
It is honorable to share deep truths. As always, QME readers and writers stand as witness, and not
in judgemnt, of QME writers' experiences as women and as human beings. This was another
difficult issue for me, personally, to bring forth, I am always privileged to express in QME
company.
