ADELAIDE PIPER by Beth Webb Hart
ADELAIDE PIPER is the story of a young woman's search for spiritual fulfillment as well as meaning and substance in her life. As such the book could just as easily been titled PIPER'S PROGRESS because it is a combination of the spiritual and the basic human drives. The pilgrim named Adelaide has trials and tribulations aplenty as she moves from one stage of her life to the next.
The book introduces us to Adelaide at an early age. She is the daughter of a Vietnam veteran and his stay at home wife. Adelaide adores her father, who lost an arm while serving in the War. She is also protective of her two sisters, the rebellious Dizzy and the more gentle Lou.
They all live in Williamston, South Carolina, which is part of the South Carolina low country. Adelaide is determined to leave this area to go to Nathaniel Buxton University, a college in Virginia. She is certain this is where her poetic heart and spirit can find freedom from the routine and ordinary life in South Carolina.
Adelaide soon finds, after arriving at NBU, that freedom isn't everything it is cracked up to be. She learns about date rape, anorexia and abortions. Her life is turned upside down and that which seemed so trite and normal now becomes a stability she longs to reach.
One of her best friends is a girl named Shannon. They had been close for years but then Shannon embraced religion and Adelaide pushed away from her. She just wasn't interested in doing the "religion" thing. But when Adelaide's world is turned topsy-turvy in college it is Shannon she reaches out to for support. And Shannon offers her a view of faith that Adelaide wants as her own.
ADELAIDE PIPER is a ponderous book in some ways. It moves at the speed of molasses in parts as it gives us the minutia of Adelaide's conversion. We also get too much information about the debutante scene in South Carolina and not enough information about the growing demise of her parents' marriage. It is a book of fits and starts. All will be placid and slow moving and then a major incident will transpire. It is like a jolt of adrenaline and moves the book along quickly for a few pages, but then it is back to a slower pace.
Readers will get aggravated with Adelaide because of her failure to get involved when she should and her over-involvement when it shouldn't be occurring. Yet in the end she emerges the heroine of the story and one who has mostly admirable traits.
Beth Webb Hart is a talented writer. She writes with an assuredness more seasoned writers would hope to have. In this novel as in her first, GRACE AT LOW TIDE, she leaves her characters flawed and moving on with life. There are no tidy wrap-ups, there is no resolution to all the conflicts, there are no happily ever afters. She writes of the real world and the real world is a work in progress. So is Adelaide Piper.
ADELAIDE PIPER is a book to be pondered and studied. There is a lot of information about life, faith and relationships within its pages. Adelaide makes progress in "her" book and so will readers who stick with the story from beginning to end.
ADELAIDE PIPER is published by WestBow Press. It contains 320 pages and sells for $13.99.