Tongues Of Flame [Paperback]

This is Tim Parks' excellent first novel, set in 1968, where charismatic Christianity and the prevailing hippie culture clash in the household of a previously conventional Protestant minister. Parks does a wonderful job evoking the time and place in the funny, spellbinding voice of the family's youngest 14-year old son. The narrative whips along until its frenzied climax and sadly insightful conclusion. An excellent read, fast but deep.

This was my first Tim Parks' novel, and led me to read other works by him. His characters are dimensional and intriguing. This novel also challenges the notion of "cult" and religion in an interesting fashion. Definitely a great, quick read.

Story is set in England in 1968. 15 year old Richard Bowen is wrestling with good and evil as he moves thru adolescence. His Father is the minister of a peaceful suburban parish. Donald Ronaldson, a new 30-something curate who hails from South Africa, introduces religious fanaticism to this peaceful parish.

Richard's older brother Adrian, who was born with a club foot, is Richard's Father's favorite - he's the brightest child in the family and Father hoped he would aspire to attend Oxford. Instead, Adrian rebels against religion and his family and adopts long hair, rock music, art, drinking, pre-marital sex and drugs as his beacon forward.

Richard timidly watches his family, his church and his community get consumed with the fanatical religious movement - he rarely takes sides, he's confused about right from wrong (Lust? Premarital sex? Is there a God? Can you go to Hell?).

Ronaldson, Richard's Mother and Richard's sister corner Adrian after they learn (or better stated that they believe) that Adrian is responsible for hedonistic activities. They attempt to perform an exorcism. Richard is watching on...

"Shivering outside, I let all this happen; I let it happen and I prayed on and on to whoever it was I was praying to, I prayed, `Don't let this happen, don't! Don't let them change him.' But it went on. Until at last I began to realize now what I should have realized all along, that if they changed Adrian, if he became one of them, I would have to change too. I would. Because I couldn't resist them on my own. And I realized that it was because of Adrian, because of his example and his courage and how I loved and at the same time hated him, that I was able to take the position I did, my neutral position in the family, in the middle, or rather aside, and just waiting quietly for the day I could leave all this and be myself. So my own fate really hung on his, hung on what it would mean if Adrian was able to be changed and broken. Because then they would change me. I turned back to the window, shivering and hugging myself, and I watched silent. They were still chanting on, round and round. I should interrupt somehow, I thought. I should, I must do something, something that would sway that ugly battle. I mustn't simply be a spectator, because it was my battle too. Obviously it was. But I couldn't do anything. I was paralyzed again. Because I had never never never taken a decisive part in anything, or shown my real self to anyone."

This short 140-page novel keeps you turning pages as you get fully absorbed in the characters and the expectation that something foreboding is on its way. Parks won the Somerset Maugham Award for writers under 35 for this novel and he was certainly deserving.

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