Belief

William McQuiggan, beaten as a child and now a bitter drinker, has been packed off by his judge father to break in a farm in the bush near Pukekaroro. He and his young Australian wife, Myra, whose late father was a strict minister, live in poverty; she suffers years of his abuse and grieves their first child. After a vision that may owe something to whiskey, William abandons Myra and their newborn twin daughters and goes to America to find God, passing through the Mormons, the Jehovah's Witnesses and Dr Alexander Dowie's utopian community at Zion City, Illinois. In Auckland, meanwhile, Myra raises the girls with the help of another family and finds a strength and faith of her own.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Genres

Family, Historical (assigned by AI)

Set in

New Zealand, United States, c. 1900

First published

2000

Author's age

39 when first published

ISBN

9781869414368 (Vintage, New Zealand)

9780099422631 (Vintage, United Kingdom)

9780312291105 (St. Martin's Press, United States)