There are people in the world who, for one reason or another, get involved with the wrong crowd. Some do it once; they learn their lesson, recognize the symptoms and don't make the mistake again. Others, however, seem to keep bashing their heads against the same proverbial shadow. They marry the wrong guy(s), go to the wrong parties, take the wrong drugs and end up flirting with madness.
Pearl Luke's second novel after Burning Ground, her much-lauded debut, Madame Zee, is a story that attempts to reconcile her main character's propensity for going to the dark side. How does a nice girl like Mabel Rowbotham of Lancashire County, England, a well-educated child of concerned, intelligent parents, end up as a disciple and lover to Brother XII on the West Coast of British Columbia? This novel explores "how" and some of the "why" behind well-meaning people who allow themselves to be persuaded by charismatic leaders.
Luke employs an internal logic in this novel, one in which every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The novel begins with the death of Edith Mabel Rowbotham's older sister, Honora. Riddled with guilt and intense remorse, Mabel communicates constantly with her dead sister. The story pivots on this initial trauma, setting in motion Mabel's inevitable descent. It is unfair to compare Luke's work to that of any other writer because her voice is distinct, but the details and beauty of her opening passages, her religious attention to historical accuracy, is reminiscent of Robertson Davies's World of Wonders. The seamless nature of the fictional world makes this a liberating read, one that isn't interrupted by a need to check the facts.
The primary interest of this novel, however, lies with language, character and story, and not with the historical accuracy of the details. While I recognize the depth of research the author engaged in to imagine the time and place of this story, it is her language that overshadows any need for accuracy. Read the following passage aloud: "Her sister's face is no longer child-like but has the tender delicacy of a young woman on the cusp of adulthood. Her hair, once worn either curly or plaited, is now parted on one side and swept back off her face in a modern style that shows only the lobes of her ears." It is like speaking with a grape in your mouth - the vowels are languorous, the percussives are precious. This is a writer of great poetic sensibilities balanced with a healthy understanding of how to build a good story.
Demonstrating a gift for sketching and an inherent attraction to plant life, Mabel is encouraged to become a botanist. However, her visions lead her to an intense curiosity about theosophy and psychometry. She chooses to become a teacher so that it can free up some time for her "real" interests.
When she immigrates to the Canadian prairies in the early 1900s, she discovers communities steeped in Christian dogma with little tolerance for her private studies. She continues to have visions, but they have expanded into the lives of others. What is she to do with these visions? Can she help other people with them? Luke has created a sympathetic character in Mabel (she later changes her name to Madame Zee), one in total opposition to how history reports the real Madame Zee, lover and disciple of Brother XII: a bitchy dominatrix.
All the characters and situations in the novel begin like enchantments. Luke affords beautiful moments of tenderness: "So the two girls curl together under their flannel blanket. She rubs the smooth surface of Honora's thumbnail with the pad of her own smaller thumb, the circular movement slowing until she falls asleep, still holding Honora's hand in their narrow iron bed." Most of the relationships Luke develops begin this gorgeously. However, as the light changes, shadows are cast and they become warped and distorted. In the small prairie town of Lancer, Sask., she meets and marries the boisterous and attractive banker, John Skottowe, who eventually becomes involved in graft and corruption. His decline is palpable and her response is credible.
Luke performs a kind of necromancy on the sexuality of her characters. The sensuality of Mabel's desires is titillating, the love scenes are well managed and erotic. Madame Zee's affair with Roger Painter, the chicken magnate from Pensacola, Fla., is both startling and disturbing in its veracity. Her love for Nellie Painter, Roger's sister, Nellie's passion for orchids, Madame Zee's talents for drawing, give credence not just to the geometry of relationships mastered by Luke but also to the necessary stitching required to hold this novel together.
With impressive choreography of her characters at dinner parties, elegant balls and chicken factories, Luke binds desire to circumstance. Treated with curiosity, clairvoyance, intuition and sexual desire, Madame Zee's descent as a result of that desire is excellent preparation for the final stage of her journey to Brother XII.
Pearl Luke has written something that explores the terra incognita of the spirit and the disturbing possibilities of a goodness that gets sidetracked. She sustains and creates an imaginative and elegant story that poses a very intriguing question. How does a nice girl like this end up in a cult like that?

[Almeda Glenn Miller lives and writes in Rossland, B.C. This review she wrote for the Globe & Mail appears here with her permission.]