Susan Midalia's Review of Anna McGahan’s novel Immaculate

An acclaimed actor as well as a playwright and memoirist, Anna McGahan has produced a provocative, sometimes brutal but also often tender debut novel. The most recent winner of the Vogel’s Literary Award, Immaculate centres on the character of Frances Harkin, the wife of Lucas, an Evangelical pastor, and the mother of a young daughter stricken with cancer. When Frances decides to leave her marriage and the religion to which she was once drawn, her life spirals into confusion, powerlessness and destructive conflicts with her husband over medical treatment for their child.

The novel’s exploration of difficult psychological and emotional terrain, including the search for personal identity, coercive religiosity and the anguishing nature of grief, is further complicated by the arrival of a pregnant teenager, Mary, who claims to have had an immaculate conception. While the story is told from the perspective of different characters, it is Frances who lies at its heart.

Variously confronting, hallucinatory, and imbued with a sense of grace, Immaculate asks us to reflect on the sordidness of life, the need for forgiveness and the beauty and ferocity of motherhood.

Publishers Review