Little Faith (Butler)

Little Faith
Nickolas Butler, 2019
HarperCollins
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062469717


Summary
In this moving new novel from celebrated author Nickolas Butler, a Wisconsin family grapples with the power and limitations of faith when one of their own falls under the influence of a radical church.

Lyle Hovde is at the onset of his golden years, living a mostly content life in rural Wisconsin with his wife, Peg, daughter, Shiloh, and six-year old grandson, Isaac.

After a troubled adolescence and subsequent estrangement from her parents, Shiloh has finally come home.

But while Lyle is thrilled to have his whole family reunited, he’s also uneasy: in Shiloh’s absence, she has become deeply involved with an extremist church, and the devout pastor courting her is convinced Isaac has the spiritual ability to heal the sick.

While reckoning with his own faith—or lack thereof—Lyle soon finds himself torn between his unease about the church and his desire to keep his daughter and grandson in his life.

But when the church’s radical belief system threatens Isaac’s safety, Lyle is forced to make a decision from which the family may not recover. 

Set over the course of one year and beautifully evoking the change of seasons, Little Faith is a powerful and deeply affecting intergenerational novel about family and community, the ways in which belief is both formed and shaken, and the lengths we go to protect our own. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—October 2, 1979
• Raised—Eau Claire, Wisconsin, USA
• Education—University of Wisconsin; Iowa Writers' Workshop
• Currently—lives in Wisconsin


Nickolas Butler, author of several novels, is perhaps best known for Shotgun Lovesongs and, most recently, Little Faith. Butler was raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and attended the University of Wisconsin. He is also a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Butler has worked as a meatpacker, a Burger King maintenance man, a liquor store clerk, a coffee roaster, an office manager, an author escort, an inn-keeper (twice), and several other odd vocations.

Aside from his novels, Butler's writings have appeared in Narrative Magazine, Ploughshares, The Kenyon Review Online, The Progressive, The Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere.

He lives on 16 acres of land in rural Wisconsin adjacent to a buffalo farm. He is married with two children.

Novels
2014 - Shotgun Lovesongs
2015 - Beneath the Bonfire
2016 - The Hearts of Men
2019 - Little Faith

Book Reviews
[A] tender and perceptive novel.… An open-minded inquiry into the nature of religious belief, in both its zealous and low-key forms.… Little Faith is [Butler’s] best so far, unafraid of sentiment yet free of the kitsch.
Wall Street Journal


[Peopled with] regular folks, behind whose plain-spoken reserve and dry humor beats the heart of the country, at once practical and passionate, poetic and earthbound.… Butler is very good at getting… the routines and rituals as subtly infused with personal history as with the changing of the seasons.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


Butler’s prose is very much a reflection of his characters, particularly Lyle—simple but not austere, forthright yet reverent. And he pragmatically poses questions of faith through his characters.… The story's pace begins slowly but steadily builds to a climactic ending. Readers may love or hate where and how Butler chooses to end the story, but there is no doubt their reaction will be informed by their own faith.
USA Today


★ [B]reathtaking yet devastating…. Butler weaves questions surrounding faith, regret, and whether it’s possible to love unconditionally.… Secondary plots, including Lyle’s friend Hoot’s slow decline from cancer, Shiloh’s adoption story, and Peg and Lyle’s early courtship, are brief but equally resonant. This is storytelling at its finest.
Publishers Weekly


★ A beautifully realized meditation on the nature of parenting and living in a perplexing (and often cruel) world. Enthusiastically recommended for parents and fans of literary fiction.
Library Journal


Exploring the complexities of faith and family, Butler… also tackles the power and pitfalls of devout Christianity.… Butler’s sense of place, which lets seasonal shifts and harvest cycles, propel the novel forward. Little Faith is quietly and deeply moving.
Booklist


The novel is like a favorite flannel shirt, relaxed and comfortable, well-crafted even as it deals with issues of life and death, faith and doubt.… Though the plot builds toward a dramatic climax, it ends with more of a quiet epiphany.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for LITTLE FAITH … then take off on your own:

1. You might start id a discussion of Little Faith by talking about the Hovde family relationships. How do the family dynamics among the four set them up to react the way each does when the crisis unfolds?

2. Years ago Lyle and Peg lost their baby son; as a result Lyle has struggled with his faith. Is Lyle's doubt understandable, or is there a way forward—to reconcile tragedy with belief? (This is a branch of philosophy called theodicy, which is often expressed more colloquially as "why do bad things happen to good people?")

3. Other than religious, what other kinds of faith exist in this book? What about faith in the bonds of family and community, or faith in what seems to be right? Does/should religious faith take precedence over other faiths?

4. What are your thoughts about Steven, especially his influence over Shiloh? How do you see Shiloh as a parent?

5. Where do your sympathies lie in this novel? Whom do you find fault with most?

6. The end of the novel offers no easy answers or resolutions. Do you find the ending satisfying, or would you have preferred a more definitive conclusion? Perhaps the author intended to leave it up to the reader to supply the novel's ending. If so, how would you write it?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online and off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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