I finished reading The Land of Decoration by Grace McCleen about a week ago, and I'm still trying to figure out what it's all about. Is it a book about religion? Is it a book about mental illness? Is it a book about any number of things? I never did come to a strong conclusion about what point the author is trying to make. The story starts out strong, but then becomes strange and tedious to read.
The book centers around a ten-year-old girl named Judith McPherson. She lives with her father (her mother died in childbirth) in a small village somewhere in England.
Judith and her father belong to a very outspoken fundamental religious group that is obsessed with Armageddon and the world as it will be after the Lord returns. They spend their evenings reading the Bible and their Saturdays going door to door warning people about their coming doom.
Judith is constantly bullied and threatened at school. At home, for solace, she builds a model of the town in her room, made of found objects, that she calls The Land of Decoration. Strangely, as Judith begins to manipulate things in her model world, the same things happen in the real world. Judith believes the coinciding events are miracles, but no one will listen to her when she wants to talk about it.
The book is interesting up to this point, but then Judith begins having conversations with "God," and decides that he is using her as his instrument. The spiritual aspect of the book from this point on is just weird. The author's portrayal of God is creepy - at one time Judith even says to him that he reminds her of the devil.
The book also becomes difficult to read because it is chapter after chapter of bullying and harassment of Judith and her father at school, at home, at her father's job - everywhere they go.
Thankfully, there is a resolution of sorts at the end, but I don't recommend reading the book to find out what it is. Skip this one.
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