Keeping the Faith

The adolescent daughter of rigid fundamentalists, Maud rebels against her parents' religion but, as she testifies in this spare, bitter, poignant novel, she does not function well as an iconoclast. Convinced as a child of her guilt, Maud questions only the nature of her sin, not whether she has in fact sinned at all. Her father interrupts her first kiss; his harsh reaction to her budding sexuality confuses and scars her. Looking back, Maud finally understands the psychological damage she has suffered from her parents' zealotry. The fictional sect resembles the Jehovah's Witnesses; references to a thatched roof, a ``chemist'' and farthings suggest England in the recent past (Uncle Ezra found God in the Great War); but specific identities and locales matter less than emotions that cross sectarian, geographic and temporal boundaries. Clewlow ( A Woman's Guide to Adultery ) here examines territory of interest to anyone grappling with restrictive, inherited creeds. (Feb.)