Lucia Greenhouse’s memoir of her Christian Science parents and the devastating results of their adherence to their faith, suffers by comparison to the last memoir of loss I read (see below). The book is titled fathermothergod: My Journey Out of Christian Science, the “fathermothergod” part being the beginning of a Christian Science prayer. I felt like this book had none of the wisdom and depth of thought that Smith’s did. Greenhouse tells her story — and it is a compelling one — with detail and passion, but I don’t feel as if she’s moved far beyond the pain of that time. The subtitle is “my journey out of Christian Science,” but it doesn’t feel like the book is as much about that faith journey as it is about the startling tale of her mother’s illness in a faith that believes illness is just “mental error.”
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