\The Falling Nun"" is a collection of short stories that wavers between the syntactic clich??s of modernism and the dramatic love plots of a Bront?? novel. The conglomerate of pieces all come from the viewpoints of women at various turning points in their young lives--ranging from a tattoo-obsessed twenty-something to a college freshman plagued with an inability to stop crying.
Most of the stories focus on love, lust or varying degrees of dealing with the absence of either, all spotted with an arsenal of tropes that reflect a universal battle between religious tradition, superstition and secularity. Despite its appealingly modern cover, the book can be easily nestled into a genre of sentimentally hopeful ""journey of life"" type of literature where the characters are all attractive, misunderstood individuals with hidden razor-like tendencies towards defeatism. The women characters range in age, but possess the same reluctance and confusion-fighting to be happy, but held back by their vices--all against a drearily overdone background of torture and glitter body spray.
One of the major problems that mars the objectives of ""The Falling Nun"" is its failure to ever gain any real legitimacy. Berkman's depiction of drug-abusing Catholic school girls in ""Veronica"" reads like a harangue of moral remonstrance lifted from an after school special.
One gets the impression that Berkman knows as much about being ""coked up"" as my mom does, and it shows in the exaggerated and gaudy prose. The heavy-handed pageant of self-inflicted abuse comes across like a parent memorizing slang terms out of a book in order to 'relate.'
These contrivances serve as a barrier between the reader and the characters: it is like being constantly reminded that this is fiction, and these characters are as non-existent as the glittering fairies that dot the pages, and all of this means absolutely nothing. Writing short stories comes at a cost-the psychological depth of the characters must be crafted expertly.
""The Falling Nun"" feels forced and fraudulently conventional. Using religion as a theme in a book about sin-swapping ravers is less than clever and Berkman tries to bank on the appeal all the way through. The relationship from story to story is jarring and superficial, leaving a lot of repetition and very little complexity.
Yet, amidst these dominating flaws, Berkman does not completely fail. The stories possess a universalism that make them readable and sometimes very interesting. And despite its overwhelming presence, the authorial voice does ease the intensity of the plot lines. It's almost like a commiserating friend shadowed with optimism, an episode of Sex and the City with less glamour and more profanity.
So, if ""The Falling Nun"" happens to fall into your lap, here are your choices: If you're looking for subtleties, don't bother. If you're looking for moral resolution with the regularity of a metronome, ""The Falling Nun"" will look great in your apartment.
