The Children of Mother Glory, by C. M. Harris

The Children of Mother Glory

C. M. Harris

Reviewed by Morgayne

As was often the only way it could happen in 1900 for a woman to become clergy, Glory Potter inherited the ministry of her father’s church. Raised without a mother, she was groomed for the role by being of service to the people in her parish long before taking over Sunday sermons upon her dad’s passing. The strict sect was founded on the mutual goals of preparing its members in fellowship for the imminent Coming of Christ and their health and welfare until then. Glory is particularly effective at both of these roles.

So much so that even though she has no children of her own she was mother of many. A woman in her early twenties, Glory Potter navigates the tight rope of the Potterite church established by her father. At least she does until the feelings she has for her childhood friend, Emma, lead them to bed for one brief taste of their passion before returning to live in the church like before as if nothing had happened between them.

What happens while the two women are dreaming of those stolen moments? Life. Emma marries and has children and Glory continues to steward the members of her church flock. During wars the Potterites are interred in prison camps as conscientious objectors because their church requires pacifism. Other members of the church struggled and die from drugs and alcoholism.

Although the church kept their members in a religious straight jacket, Mother Glory’s children manage to follow in her footsteps in finding love in non-traditional ways. More importantly they find ways to acknowledge and live with who they really are within the church and the larger context of the world. The main characters were well developed and I was able to have a personal experience with the secondary characters also. As much as I enjoyed Mother Glory’s children I would like to have seen more between Glory and her beloved Emma.

I enjoyed C.M. Harris’s prose which was elegant and poetic. Her story covers a hundred years and Harris manages wonderfully to keep the language progression true to each time period from 1900 to a current setting. In The Children of Mother Glory the author sets herself the Herculean task of exploring pretty much all the social issues of the Twentieth century including: good vs. evil, women as clergy, war and peace, the evils of technology, alcoholism, drugs and other addictions, homosexuality and gender reassignment. It’s a great deal to wrap one’s mind around and at times I was a little daunted by the epoch scope of this novel.

Overall however I found Children of Mother Glory to be well written and nestled nicely in an accurate historical setting. Having grown up in Indiana I can easily see how an ultra conservative church and followers could spring up in the mid-west.

About Morgayne: My life is here on the Olympic Peninsula in western Washington with my cat Shadow where I find inspiration for writing in the beauty of the Olympic Mountains, beaches and in the writing of others.