While there are no rope or belt scenarios à la Fifty Shades in Fire Sermon, Jamie Quatro’s novel fairly pulsates with sadomasochism. The major departure is that, in Quatro’s debut, punishment is self-administered and self-consciously linked to an eminent line of Christian thinkers. The story’s primary sufferer is Maggie, the well-off author of a book of short fiction as well as an unfulfilled housewife, PhD program dropout and theologically-oriented poet manquée. Married for nearly two decades to her college sweetheart, a generous, thoughtful and supportive but agnostic man who does not satisfy her sexually (and possesses a dominant, sadistic streak), Maggie ponders sex, faith, longing, fidelity, marriage, happiness, loyalty, prayer and the rest through a Christian lens. She wonders whether, for example, sex is a boomerang: “sex a lure to God, God a lure back to sex, ad infinitum.”

Source: thestar January 12, 2018 11:26 UTC