GUEST WRITER MICHAEL ClUBINE RECOMMENDS THE GOSPEL OF ORLA BY EOGHAN WALLS
Kindness is all that there is.
Eoghan Wells’s debut novel The Gospel of Orla depicts the life of many teenagers around the world. Orla is a 14-year-old Irish girl trying to cope with the recent death of her mother amid her growing adolescence in life and at school. Coping with her, are her alcoholic father and little sister, Lily. Please be aware, there are triggering subjects such as alcoholism and abuse.
Meanwhile, Orla is an ordinary teenager who struggles with asthma, fitting in, and school suspensions. On one of her routine bike rides, a middle-aged man named Jesus crashes into her. Jesus is dressed in a dishevelled blanket and claims to be the biblical figure. He has no knowledge of technology or what is around. What starts as fear of this man transforms into a friendship between Orla and Jesus. Jesus joins Orla on her pilgrimage through rural farmland to Ireland where her dead mother is buried. Together they bike, boat, and walk, getting lost on the way to the burial site of her mother.
I was brought to joy and tears by this book. It showed me that amid the doubt and pain we have humans, there is hope for healing, mending, and solace. On this pilgrimage, Walls communicates to all of us that “kindness is all that there is.” For many of us, it is hard to ignore dark thoughts and fears through these life trials. However, together, Orla and Jesus bear each other’s pains and pasts with a childlike spirit, which is evident between all the humour, laughter, and swearing along their legendary journey.
I recommend this book to anyone and everyone. You will have a restored faith that the goodness and grace of humanity have and always have been present.
Michael Clubine is always on the run from Southwestern Ontario and is a B.Ed student at UNB. However, one of the few things he enjoys in Ontario is gazing into the summer sunsets at the lake and dreaming about everything under the sun in Muskoka.