Series: Mitford Years #5
Published by Viking on January 1, 1999
Genres: Christy Award Winner, Fiction, Christian, General
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In the fifth novel in #1 New York Times bestselling author Jan Karon's beloved series, fans old and new will discover that when it comes to Mitford, absence only make the heart grow fonder...
Mitford's longtime Episcopal priest, Father Tim, has retired. But new challenges and adventures await when he agrees to serve as interim minister of a small church on Whitecap Island. He and his wife, Cynthia, soon find that Whitecap has its own unforgettable characters: a church organist with a mysterious past, a lovelorn bachelor placing personal ads, a mother battling paralyzing depression. Whitecap has more than its fair share of challenges, but in the end, Father Tim and Cynthia find that Mitford is never far away when circumstances back home keep their phone ringing off the hook...
The inaugural award for contemporary Christian fiction might as well be for the first five of Jan Karon’s Mitford books. Karon began writing her stories of Father Tim, a humorous and easy-going Episcopal priest in the early 1990s to relatively no acclaim. When At Home in Mitford was published in 1994, sales were minimal but Karon continued with a few more in the series until catching the eye of Viking Press. By the time A New Song released in 1999, Viking had turned Mitford and Father Tim into household names within Christian circles.
A New Song follows the newly and officially retired Father Tim who is leaving the homey and pastoral locale of Mitford for a new adventure—A New Song, if you will—as the interim priest at a small Episcopal church on Whitecap Island. Karon assembles a cadre of memorable and eclectic characters and circumstances surrounding Father Tim that weave between simple and serious and the good priest handles it all with grace and humor to spare. Even though Karon touches on some difficult problems—from mental and physical illness to natural disasters—there’s never any real sense of potential harm as everything ends up happy in the end.
While idyllic and idealistic, it isn’t an altogether inaccurate portrayal of small-town life and the joys and challenges of being a small-town pastor. To the best of my knowledge, Karon never sets a chronological setting for her books and even though this won in the Contemporary category, the books evoke a feeling of mid-20th century America. Think of The Andy Griffith Show but replace the sheriff with an Episcopal priest. A New Song is a bit meandering and lengthy; veers from homey to hokey in a few places; and sometimes reads like a mashup from a Hallmark movie script, a Reader’s Digest story, and a church bulletin. Nonetheless, it’s got a unique charm about it and I see why it was so incredibly popular at the turn of the century.
A New Song by Jan Karon (Viking) beat By the Light of a Thousand Stars by Jamie Langston Turner (Bethany House) and Romey’s Place by James Calving Schaap (Baker Books) to claim the 2000 Christy Award in Contemporary Fiction. It remains one of the few novels from a mainstream secular publisher to win the award.
A New Song by Jan Karon
9.22