Blue Shoe (Anne Lamott)

Genre: Literary fiction
Year Published: 2002

Years ago, I used to read Anne Lamott's work on Salon.com, and while I found her writing both inspiring and comforting, I used to wonder about the white woman with dreadlocks whose ecumenical spiritualism seemed to reach its fingers into every corner of her odd little writing life.

I forgot about her, mostly, until I spotted a copy of her novel Blue Shoe at the local secondhand shop. Then I recalled how much I enjoyed her weird relationship with God and her expansive authorial style, so I bought the book and took it home with me.

Blue Shoe is only a novel in the sense that it is fictional and not too short or long. There isn't much of a narrative arc, though there is a lot of character development. It reads more like a novelization of three or four years' worth of a woman's diary than a traditional novel. The main character, from whose third-person point of view the novel is told, is Mattie Ryder, a divorced woman with two children who is barely able to make ends meet. The novel centers around the important relationships in her life, those with her best friends, her brother and mother, her children, and God.

The changes in those relationships comprise most of the book: Mattie struggles to parent her children alone, barely copes with an aging mother who is quickly spiraling downward, falls in love, and uncovers the truth about the life of her late father. The blue shoe of the title is something that Mattie finds in her father's old car and tries to place in her father's life. As she learns more about him, she is simultaneously horrified by the revelations and desperate to know more about a man she feels was almost a stranger to her. All the while, though, she is falling apart in a thousand other ways -- her children are beset with anxiety and anger, her mother doesn't want the help she needs, the man she loves is married to another woman -- and Mattie clings to her life by her fingernails.

Throughout it all, though, Mattie's spiritualism (which is, unsurprisingly, much like Lamott's) is her anchor. It is not rigid or demanding, but rather flexible, forgiving, and patient. Her spirituality does not overwhelm the book, or even form a major plot point. It is just a part of Mattie, like the fact that she is a size 12 or that she loves dogs. This was, to me, a point in the book's favor: so few authors seem willing to make their characters quietly religious that most novels are populated either with fanatics or blithe agnostics.

I cannot say that I enjoyed Blue Shoe; it is too emotionally difficult to enjoy. Lamott's prose is beautiful -- she can cobble together the most exquisite metaphors -- and her characterizations are astounding. Yet I can't see myself ever rereading this novel. Mattie's pain is too real, and the book is too close to life to offer any sort of resolution at its conclusion. Lamott seems to be fighting the idea that there are any easy answers or simple solutions in life -- true enough, certainly, but it makes for a tough read.

Recommended? It is a very good book, and it will make you look at the world a little differently. If you think you can swallow the requisite angst, take a stab at it.