Disclaimer: I’m going to give some definite spoilers of Deeane Gist’s Measure of a Lady (as I remember it, which may or may not be how it is actually written) in the below–and use some words that aren’t always child-friendly (although I’ve discovered that they’re rather common in the ESV translation of Hosea.) Be forewarned.
Rachel van Buren is mannerly, modest and utterly self-righteous. Even if she and her younger brother and sister are stuck (for the time being) in sinful San Francisco, she’s determined to uphold her standards of morality.
When her brother goes whoring and her sister becomes one, Rachel responds in anger and judgment. Not so much because she is concerned for her siblings, but because she is concerned with how that all reflects on her (even though she is clearly not susceptible to such evil.)
But Rachel is in for a surprise when she discovers that she’s not so immune to temptation herself.
The Measure of a Lady was the first Deeanne Gist book I read, and I loved it. I appreciated how Rachel came to see that sin was inside her (rather than external to her) through the temptation that is Johnnie Parker. And I appreciated how Rachel came to understand that physical desire is not sinful within appropriate boundaries (that is, marriage). I excused Gist’s more-explicit content because I felt it served the story well. I didn’t see it as gratuitous.
Then I recently read A Bride Most Begrudging and A Bride in the Bargain, both books about one of my favorite scenarios–marriage between strangers. From my early teens, I’ve been fascinated by the topic and its many fictional variations. I loved Lori Wick’s Sean Donovan, Donovan’s Daughter, and The Princess; Janette Oke’s A Bride for Donovan; and Jane Peart’s Valiant Bride. Gist’s “A Bride…” seemed likely to fit into the same general genre.
And so they did, with interesting variations on the theme.
But Gist’s novels also brought up some teenage reading I’d rather have forgotten and left long so. The explicit content continued, only this time with no apparent bearing on the plot.
While not as explicit as today’s Harlequins, Gist’s novels are in line with the Harlequins of the late 70s–the books that acted as a gateway drug for me, introducing me to images and patterns of thought that I still have to actively make war against.
Maybe I’ve not touched the drugs in years, but if the 70s Harlequins I read as a teen were Marlboros passed in the school bathroom, Gist’s books are trendy clove cigarettes smoked in an indie coffee shop. A drug by any other name…
I enjoy Gist’s plots. I like her characters. She’s not a bad author. But I won’t be reading her books any longer.
Like a recovering alcoholic hanging out in a bar, nothing good will come of me reading these. Better to renew my mind in holiness than to encourage it in wickedness.