“I felt a desire to turn the pages of Sarah’s scrapbooks; they were still in my wardrobe, far away. Even though she was gone, she’d lived this whole life, rich in feeling and pain. None of it had been her fault: it had simply happened. I wondered what kind of sense I could make from those pages stiff with glue, from her pencil markings, from all that had happened, her long journey.”

Believe In Me is the second novel by Australian author, Lucy Neave. After an unconventional childhood, certain events lead Bet, at thirty, to try to reconstruct her mother’s life, to inhabit her thoughts, to feel what she did and make sense of it.

The story begins in mid-1974 in Poughkeepsie. Eighteen-year-old Sarah Francis takes leave of her devout but illiterate mother and her artistic younger brother, boarding a train to Idaho with their pastor, Isaiah Woolcott, three days before her daughter is conceived. She assists the pastor in God’s work as a missionary to a reluctant Indian population, wishing only to return her mother.

Her pregnancy brings ostracism: she is sent to an uncle in Sydney, and put in a home for unmarried mothers. Despite her naivete, Sarah is determined to keep her child. A militantly feminist mid-wife, a bus trip to Adelaide and work as a live-in housekeeper never dampen her resolve to return home, now with her daughter, Bethany.

But Isaiah is only the first in a line of men who take advantage of their position, or try to. Independence is difficult to achieve with a baby to care for: “Love for a child is something you carry, a weight in your chest. It curves your back and makes you walk as though you live on Jupiter, the gravity making you heavier: all the responsibility” and, dependant on the kindness of strangers, her goal of going home seems even more difficult to attain.

Sarah’s apparent acquiescence may puzzle today’s woman, but her mother, Greta’s mantra: “Accept whatever comes from above, because it’s all from God” seems to guide her strange choices. Bet is surprised at some of Sarah’s surreptitious acts of defiance.

Neave has Bet telling Sarah’s story through a first-person narrative that is sometimes from Sarah’s perspective, and sometimes from her own, and remembering this will avoid occasional confusion with personal pronouns. Her descriptive prose is often exquisite, and she easily evokes strong emotions and feelings from the reader with what these women experience and endure. This is a powerful, compelling read.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by University of Queensland Press.