Jesus Land

Jesus Land, by Julia Scheeres

Journalist Scheeres offers a frank and compelling portrait of growing up as a white girl with two adopted black brothers in 1970s rural Indiana, and of her later stay with one of them at a Christian reform school in the Dominican Republic. The book takes its title from a homemade sign that Scheeres and the brother closest to her in age and temperament, David, spot one day on a road in the Hoosier countryside, proclaiming, "This here is: JESUS LAND." And while religion is omnipresent both at their school and in the home of their devout parents, the two rarely find themselves the beneficiaries of anything resembling Christian love.

I read this while on spring break, which wasn't a bad way to do it, boiling in the tropical heat of Mexico, reading about the tropical heat of the Dominican Republic. After finishing it, the woman who lent it to me asked if I could believe that places like the religious camp detailed in the book really existed, and about that, I didn't have a moment of doubt. Crazy religious camps are one of the more believable things in the memoir, which is perhaps why I it didn't affect me overmuch. The entire first half of Jesus Land takes place in somewhat rural Indiana, where the racism is as direct as it is pervasive. Scheeres' parents adopted two black boys in order to prove the strength of their faith, rather than from any real desire to love or help some unwanted kids. Scheeres' descriptions of the reluctance of anyone in the family to step out and shield the two children from the racism of outsiders attempts to condemn as well as atone for her own admitted unwillingness to stick her neck out. That section, as she relates the way in which she turned away from her brother David in order not to provoke violence on herself as well, seemed almost too pat. I don't doubt it, but it seemed too much like a public penance, done more out of a sense of martyrdom than real feeling. It could have just come across that way because Scheeres was constrained by the point of view from her seventeen year old self. The parts of the Indiana section which don't relate directly to David are the weak points of Jesus Land. Scheeres' behavior as a teen kind of boggles the mind, not in a holy cow! way, but more of a too-dumb-to-be-true way. There's a note at the beginning that says that while all the events happened, the timeline has been compressed in order to make the story more coherent and cohesive. Perhaps my dislike of these parts come from this compression, but whatever the origin, my distaste for just about every person in the book, including Scheeres, made reading the book more of a chore than it should rightly be.

The events of the book are unbelievable, but the events in the first half (most of them) are unbelievable in a Homer Simpson kind of way, whereas the events of the second half are unbelievable in an oh-the-humanity kind of way, which I suspect is more of what the author was going for. In my opinion, the second half of the book, set in the Dominican Republic after Scheeres chooses reform camp rather than juvie, could (and should) have been the entire book itself. It is a much stronger story than the Indiana half, and doesn't contain the melodramatic idiocy that the first half does. There is more tension, more at stake, in this section, and it makes Scheeres sympathetic, without absolving her. This section also allows us to really get invested in her relationship with David, which is crucial to your enjoyment of the memoir. David, as seen through Scheeres' eyes, is the only innocent here, the one who keeps the dream of family alive despite the evidence of his own eyes. In the end of the book, it's revealed that ***SPOILER****SPOILER****SPOILER*** David dies, and that much of the material for the book was taken from his journals. In that light, the book makes more sense, and is more moving. As a memorial to David, it works well, a sort of marble angel in written form. It would be a compelling story either way, but since David was the only person about whom I gave a damn, his death gives more meaning to the act of writing. Without that conclusion, it would have been too distant from him, it would have become more about Scheeres growing up and growing wiser.

The religion in the book is, of course, appalling, disgusting, etc. etc. The manifestation of faith in many circumstances illustrates the depth of hypocrisy and possibilities for abuse. Organized religion (as opposed to disorganized? In the Venn diagram of life, can it really be called a religion if it's not organized? And no, the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is not a religion) has been responsible for a lot of terrible things. Missionaries (and the reasoning behind them) have been responsible for a lot of terrible things. That these thigs happen says more about the believers than the religion itself. One of the mistakes of the book lies in the point-of-view. The restrictions of a adolescent girl's mind prohibits very thoughtful insight about this facet of the events. Scheeres' own opinion about religion is not discussed, and in a way, it's not relevant - religious fervor comes in many flavors and often has more to do with power than religion - but to leave it (and other discussions about belief) out entirely, when the book is called Jesus Land, is a miscalculation. All in all, a good book, good beach reading, and it sticks in your mind, even though I have no desire to read it again. I've read more powerful memoirs, but as a memorial, it works.