The Sparrow - Mary Doria Russell

The Sparrow (Mary Doria Russell, 1997)

Extra-terrestrial radio messages have been received on Earth, and the technology to travel to the source exists. Whom do we send? While the governments of the world debate, the Jesuits assemble a team of four priests and four laypeople, sending them into the unknown to know God's other children.

Thirty years later, Emilio Sandoz, the lone survivor, arrives back at Earth in disgrace, accused of murder, prostitution, and disrupting the fabric of the alien civilization on the planet Rakhat.

The Sparrow, the first novel by Mary Doria Russell, is a barn burner of a book. After you're hooked, it's hard to put down. Told in a back-and-forth style, it traces the history of the ill-fated mission, the lives of the people involved, and the attempted rehabilitation and debriefing of Sandoz by the Society of Jesus, who want to know the facts behind the accusations. As pure science fiction, it succeeds wildly, and the characters are distinct, complex, and living. But the book doesn't just tell a good story. It presents a new view of an old problem: if God is real, why does he allow unspeakable evil?

Russell grew up Catholic and converted to Judaism, so she brings a very interesting perspective to the question. As with many powerful works of literature, she doesn't answer the question outright, she just lets it play out in the lives of her characters. It unfolds with the urgency of a thriller and the inevitability of the best tragic plays. Yet it isn't a sad book; rather, it is full of the vibrancy of adventure and life lived to the fullest. The characters are so real that their experience becomes our own, which makes the moral issue all the more immediate.

Tied to the question of evil is a powerful study of good intentions. The team does everything right when it comes into contact with the natives of Rakhat, and for a long time they enjoy a mutually instructive harmony. Yet a fundamental difference in cultures allows innocent actions to trigger catastrophic results. As Emilio and his therapists/interrogators wrestle with the questions and the consequences, we are carried along with them into the darker regions of human experience before emerging on the other side.

Arbitrary rating: 5 out of 5 double-irised eyes