Description
Dana is a food writer looking for her next book idea. When an elder in her Unitarian Universalist Church suggests she join the committee in charge of selecting a candidate to replace the departing minister, Dana is initially hesitant because of the time commitment, but then realizes that her next book idea just fell into her lap. Besides her creative instinct, Dana genuinely hopes to find a minister who is a perfect fit for the congregation, ideally a social-justice-minded middle-aged woman with a wealth of wisdom and experience. The other committee members have their own wish list, however, and it doesn’t take long before committee meetings offer drama to rival any novel.
A church’s search for a minister is small-scale drama, to be sure, but Huneven gives the committee members depth enough to carry them through their months-long engagement. She teases out the humor inherent in the members’ charged interactions, but never suggests that the passion they feel about their task is silly or misplaced. Even Dana, who starts the search with a kind of artistic distance, finds she truly cares about the outcome. And, thanks to Huneven’s assured storytelling, so do we.