There was a point in time when I was an angsty teenager who took issue with everything and everyone that could be rallied against. And during this time, I was repeatedly frustrated with my parents for raising me without religion. After all, every friend that I had was turning against the church or turning towards new aspects of their faith as they "found themselves," and I had no information from which to find an opposite. These days, I'm a mellow adult who can appreciate the fact that my parents gave me information without answers. But there are days when I wish that I'd studied a little bit more about religion; one of those days recently occurred when I was reading A Woman Alone at Night.
A Woman Alone at Night is the first-person story of Mira, a girl whose questionable early introductions to sex forever color her sexual relationships. The story weaves back and forth in time, providing glimpses here and there of who Mira is in the present and how she became that way because of her past. And in that way, the story is compelling. Berger does a terrific job of "showing without telling" the story that she is sharing. Her explorations of Mira's early sexuality are so perfectly detailed that I could find my own teenage self mirrored there even when the story of Mira was not really the story of my self.
But the problem for me as a reader was that the story of Mira is a retelling of the story of St. Mary of Egypt. As described loosely on the back cover of the short novel, St. Mary of Egypt was a historical figure - "a prostitute who reveled in her sexuality before repenting." And so, as the story goes on, it becomes more than just the story of Mira and what happened in her past. It becomes a story with significant religious references and parallels. And it becomes a story wherein some understanding of religion and the concept of sin is necessary.
As a reader without this background, I felt like I was struggling through the text. I wanted to be able to understand Mira and where she was coming from. After all, as she lies there in her teenage years on the couch of a man who sexually mistreats her and she struggles internally with her own choices, it's easy to empathize with her. Even as she gets involved in the work of stripping and her life gets inextricably mired with other complicated characters, it's clear how one experience has led to the other. The reader wants to see things work out for her.
The story gets complicated by the introduction of its religious aspects. And a reader who isn't intimately familiar with such topics has to read so carefully and try to absorb so much that it becomes difficult to focus on the story of Mira. The reader gets drawn into what significance certain things have in the big scheme of history and religious belief and loses sight of the fact that Mira is still just a girl with a story that she's trying to share.
The story has its strengths. The way that Berger weaves in and out of time creates a narrative flow that is both mesmerizing and artful. And perhaps for someone with either a basic religious background or with the inclination to do enough research into the story of St. Mary of Egypt to understand the parallels, the story would have more than just these basic strengths. This is not a light-hearted read.
Originally published September 2007 - "Saucy September"