Miriam H. Huggins

Saint Kitts and Nevis.

This is a hard book to review. On the one hand, I appreciated the look inside the mind of this very religious author. On the other hand, I didn't like what I saw there. Huggins is judgmental, strict about doctrine (when it suits her to criticize others) and, apparently, constantly besieged by vicious congregants, witchcraft-wielding neighbors, and devils. I have no doubt that this is how she experienced her life as an abused and neglected child on Nevis and later as a lay minister (or minster's wife). I do doubt that I would have interpreted events the same way if I were observing her. By the time she got to her enthusiasm for converting the Jews I had to make myself keep reading, and though I was sorry that she died of cancer, I would have sent her family my condolences from a distance. Her memoir does provide a great deal of indirect information about synchretic Christianity and the difficulty of ministering when other religious beliefs and traditions are covertly practiced or integrated into the community's (and minister's) culture.

I doubt that witchcraft exists, but I am willing to suspend my disbelief because I have no call to argue with the author about the nature of reality. Mostly, though, this memoir strikes me as a life narrative by a depressive, somewhat paranoid, and perhaps abrasive person who somatizes and externalizes her stress in the form of vague physical symptoms that she attributes to maliciousness and the devil. That some of her children also confirm and experience these phenomena convinces me only that there are cultural and perhaps psychological factors at play. In the end, I am glad her faith sustained her, but her story makes me sad.… (más)