Religion, violence mix in young woman's life

 

"Why Beulah Shot Her Pistol inside the Baptist Church" by Clayton Sullivan: NewSouth Books, 238 pages, $24.95

Clayton Sullivan has written a novel that accurately depicts what young girls in rural communities used to have to endure.

Beulah is poignant, nave at first and very inexperienced in life itself. She learns quickly how to survive.

Beulah was raised in a small town in rural Mississippi and always attended the New Jerusalem Baptist Church, which forbade her to cut her hair or to wear makeup.

Beulah marries at age 16 with her father's blessing - but not her mother's - to the widower Ralph Rainey, who is more than twice her age.

She soon experiences domestic violence and learns he wants her only as a free worker with a next-to-nothing sex life. Ralph has always been a saint in public and a snake at home.

Beulah soon begins an affair with the preacher. That soon heads down a wrong road to a bitter end.

All the while, Beulah dreams of becoming a "lady on her own" and running her own life. Whether the church likes it or not, she is determined to be her own person.

And that leads to the novel's dramatic conclusion.

Sullivan is professor emeritus of philosophy and comparative religion at the University of Southern Mississippi. Now a full-time writer, he lives in Hattiesburg, Miss. His other works include "Rescuing Jesus from the Christians." This is his first novel.

Darlene Jolly is a lifelong resident of the Monrovia community.

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