BOOK REVIEW: ‘Act of God’

OPINION:

ACT OF GOD

By Jill Ciment

Pantheon, $24, 192 pages

The tale Jill Ciment tells in “Act of God” is not funny. It’s about a fungus infestation that leaves several families homeless and impoverished, and at least one person dead. Nonetheless, this novel breezes along, fizzing with wit as it sails toward a comic ending that leaves the surviving characters rich with possibilities.

At the center of the group of neighbors whose lives are shattered by the fungus are 64-year-old identical twins: stout Edith, who “wore their features sensibly and wisely,” and voluptuous Kat, who “gave them sparkle and animation.” Edith had been a legal librarian, while Kat had adventures in hippieland. Now they are living together in the rent-controlled apartment where they grew up: Edith planning a Smithsonian exhibition of her mother’s letters, and Kat hoping to publish a selection of them. Their mother was Dr. Mimi, a famous advice columnist who answered thousands of readers’ letters. “It hardly mattered whether the question had been composed with a blunt pencil on a greasy brown bag or with fountain pen on Plaza stationery, the letters basically asked the same thing: — Am I lovable?” It’s a question that never entirely disappears during the novel.

When Kat and Edith discover a pink luminescent fungus, “its surface roiling” in the hall closet, they step on the fast track to disaster. There’s more fungus under Edith’s bed, and more in the basement where the letters are stored. Vida, their actress landlady, had never responded to Edith’s messages about strange smells in the basement. She doesn’t want to make their lives as tenants easy because she wants them out of the apartment so she can convert it. Edith knows about tort law and is ready to hold Vida responsible for damage. In turn, as the fungus spreads Vida is ready to claim from her insurance company. Then she learns that the infestation counts as an act of God and is not covered. By the time Vida gets this news, New York’s Health Department has evicted everyone and sent in a HAZMAT team. As the fungus quickly spreads to neighboring buildings, the solution is to burn them. So the elderly Szymanskis and Gladys with her 17 cats, as well as Edith, Kat, Vida and a Russian who calls herself Ashley are without homes.

Ashley is a newcomer to America but she’s used to living on her wits. And Kat, who has bobbed around various New Age career and living options, is pretty adaptable too. So is Frank, the ex-boxer who has looked after several of the afflicted houses. He believes he knows the secrets of the buildings in his care, but as the rampageous fungus makes clear, houses harbor all sorts of things. Ashley, for example, has lived in Vida’s closet for a while, wearing Vida’s clothes, even tidying her underwear drawer. Who knew? And who knew about the fungus — also discovered hiding in a closet? No one. And people don’t know all that much about each other. Kat doesn’t know about Edith’s love life and doesn’t appreciate what her work had entailed, and while Edith has suspicions about her sister’s goings-on, she’s vague on the details.

This evocation of the shadowy places and mysteries of everyday life and relationships, raises questions about responsibility. Should Vida be really held accountable for the fungus that destroys her house and her tenants’ apartment? Should her insurance company reimburse her? Answering no to these questions — in effect agreeing that the fungus is an act of God — suggests the potential craziness of everyday life. Destruction is always a possibility. The boxes of letters that Edith preserved so carefully are destroyed. The house that Vida spent all her money on is burned. And Ashley, who struggled so gamely to get to and stay in the United States finds herself back where she started in Omsk. But — and this is where the joy of this novel lies — there’s always something to move on to, at least for busy, inventive characters such as Kat and Vida and Ashley. Jill Ciment shifts the point of view to each of them in turn, and each wins the reader’s affection and concern. Faced with personal disasters of such magnitude, how can they go on?

They don’t exactly fall on their feet, but the author gives them consolation prizes. Not what they would have chosen, perhaps, but “Act of God” does nothing if not suggest the arbitrariness of life. That can be a discouraging thought, but Ms. Ciment’s interestingly quirky — but not cute — characters suggest human buoyancy, while her deft sentences and cleverly chosen details set a bracing pace that keeps the full force of the novel’s questions about responsibility and forgiveness in check until the last page is turned. Then readers may look back and consider what we might really mean by an act of God.

• Claire Hopley is a writer and editor in Amherst, Mass.