Book review: Immaculate
Katelyn Detweiler – Immaculate
There are books you come across unexpectedly and know immediately that you must have right now. Katelyn Detweiler’s debut novel offers up a question that will instantly pull in anyone who’s been through a Catholic education (particularly, perhaps, those of us who resented it) – what would happen if there was a real-life virgin pregnancy in today’s world?
Seventeen-year-old Mina, or ‘Meenius’ the genius, plans to spend her senior year maintaining her perfect grades, continuing to date her longterm boyfriend Nate, and hanging out with her two best friends before college separates them all. Instead, after a mysterious message from an old woman named Iris, and an inexplicably intense dream of fireworks and bright lights, Mina discovers she’s pregnant. She knows she can’t be – she’s never had sex, not even close – but at the same time she knows she must be. And that this baby is special.
Her mother believes her. Her father is sure she’s lying, that his perfect daughter has made a mistake she can’t admit. Her younger sister is excited. Nate hates her, and quickly dumps her, convinced that she’s cheated on him. And while one of her best friends stands by her, the other agrees with what most of the community – and later the media – believe: Mina’s lying.
This is a novel about a miracle: not one that fits in with what the Church wants, and not one that manages to be explained by science. Much as I would have loved some more scientific attempts to explain the pregnancy and the special nature of the child (I very much want a sequel in which we discover that the child’s blood cures cancer because of its unusual conception), the focus here is on faith, on believing in intuition and the people you love. And aside from this one element, the rest is pure realism: the cruel reactions of Mina’s classmates and later her opponents, as the story about the pregnant virgin spreads to the national media, are one hundred percent believable.
As a novel about teen pregnancy, it mostly handles the issue of choice well; there is a slightly shudder-inducing part where Mina describes herself as a ‘vessel’ and ‘human incubator’ in a positive way, which I found unsettling. But abortion is addressed, and it’s clear that it is a choice she might have made in other circumstances, if she and Nate had slept together. Mina chooses not to have an abortion or to give the baby up for adoption, and she has also said yes to this child, despite the unusual circumstances.
Immaculate is a tricky novel: spiritual enough to be off-putting for some, not sufficiently religious or perhaps sacrilegious for many others. I found it a thought-provoking read about a girl faced with a situation she never imagined but nevertheless embraces and defends. But it is also very much about faith and belief, and what happens when these beliefs don’t fit into neat or tidy boxes.
