The Beet Queen

All protagonists in the novel—the five primary narrators—have been profoundly influenced by Catholicism. Mary, Sita, and Celestine all attend St. Catherine’s school together; Karl attends seminary before renouncing the priesthood; and even Wallace, whose narrative sections make no mention of religious belief, remembers that he knew (and disliked) Mary from their time at Catholic school. Even minor characters, like Russell Kashpaw and Jude Miller, reveal their ties to religion in ways small (Russell) and significant (Jude). These influences reverberate throughout the novel: From saints and priests to martyrs and miracles, the language of religion is deeply embedded in the characters’ thoughts. While this also sometimes takes the form of rejection—from Karl forsaking his vocation to Mary’s preoccupation with the supernatural to Sita drifting away from the church after her divorce—these characters still belie their connection to Catholicism through their explicit, if fraught, turning away from it.

Mary’s “miracle” in manifesting “’Christ’s face formed in the ice’” turns her into a minor celebrity for a time (40). However, this miracle is complicated by the reactions of the various people who witness it. First, there is Mary’s reaction to her creation: “The pure gray fan of ice below the slide had splintered, on impact with my face, into a shadowy white likeness of my brother Karl” (39).