... generous and compassionate ... Her tour of humanity, spanning unlighted country roads in Australia to crumbling apartments in the South Bronx, shows that many human beings benefit from finding an ideology that encompasses not just their beliefs but their ways of living. I don’t know if Krasnostein is entertained, credulous or just tolerant of the ghost types, and that is one of her gifts ... Krasnostein skips from subject to subject and returns, with the fluidity of a string wound for a game of cat’s cradle—in and out and back where she started ... Her talent for penetrating intimate settings and eliciting personal testimony is impressive. The profiles are fascinating—I can’t imagine talking to paranormal enthusiasts for more than 10 minutes without nodding off or secretly checking my phone, but Krasnostein’s portraits left me feeling melancholy all the same. We all want so much to belong, to believe, to connect, to be whole, to be good—and that’s a lot, whether you work at the Ark Encounter in Kentucky or are chasing space aliens in Victoria.
What’s most striking about Krasnostein’s dealings with, and portraits of, these people is her compassion ... Even when they are espousing ideas that seem 'unfathomable' and even offensive, Krasnostein’s project is always to try to understand them and what it might be like to live as they do. In this sense, it is a deeply humanist project, and one that feels timely, too. Krasnostein’s writing is lyrical and stylish, and imaginative in a way that often feels invigorating ... The idea of a composite portrait is ambitious, and it also allows Krasnostein to work with echoes and repetitions, resonances across the text. It’s a poetic structure, and one that works by accrual ... one of the pleasures of the book is noticing the moments in which the stories interweave or chime against each other. It does make for some unevenness, though – not all of the characters or their narratives are as compelling or intriguing as those that really shine here; nor is Krasnostein’s project of understanding able to be achieved equally across them. The fragmentary nature of their telling too can be disorienting or even somewhat dissatisfying, impeding as it does at times a sense of narrative progression within each individual story ... Despite this, The Believer is a fascinating book ... And it is informed always by a sprawling curiosity and deep humanity, which make it an affirming, and deeply moving read.
Sarah Krasnostein brings her inquisitive nature and empathetic way with people to her new book ... Krasnostein interviews a range of people about their beliefs – ghost hunters, UFO researchers, a death doula, Mennonite missionaries and Creationists (complete with life-sized Noah’s Ark) – and these interviews had me confronting my own belief systems and sympathies ... This is a hard-to-define book because it swings wildly from group to group, but that’s also the beauty of it. By seeking such disparate subjects, Krasnostein has woven the threads of their stories, and their very different belief systems, into a tapestry that is rich with life, love and stories. I expect this will be running off the shelves, and deservedly so.
This book is a superb achievement; Krasnostein is a masterful storyteller and describes her cast of characters in a rich and vibrant manner. You constantly have to remind yourself that you’re not actually in the room with her ... By interspersing the six stories, Krasnostein encourages us to consider different forms, motives and methods for belief. At the beginning, it may be confusing to ascertain what a woman with a terminal illness and a creationist museum which has built a life-size replica of Noah’s ark have in common, but the ideas start to flow as the stories unfold ... Krasnostein is an observer, not a judge. She challenges our insatiable appetite to know the reasons for things and does not invent contrived endings for stories that do not have them.
While Krasnostein spent a remarkable amount of time with each of her subjects, meeting with some over a period of years, we only spend a few pages at a time with them ... Initially, it is jarring ... But as The Believer progresses and harmonies accrue among what Krasnostein calls 'six different notes in the human song of longing for the unattainable,' the brilliance of this approach reveals itself. I do not know that I would have had the patience to read 40 straight pages on the Creation Museum ... But in reading this story amid the others in small slices, I was better able to appreciate the commonalities underneath them that reveal aspects of the human condition ... Krasnostein doesn't just act as a microphone for her subjects' beliefs; she pushes back against them at crucial junctures. Her approach is not to debunk, but to provide philosophical and personal interjections that allow a more profound look at why people believe what they believe, and the ways some beliefs can 'stunt us' ... While it was the same curiosity and a desire to bridge distance that led Krasnostein to all these subjects, some are more compelling than others ... In the end, though, The Believer succeeds at its goal of bridging distances, of transcending the self to comprehend the other.
The Believer stretches...empathy and insight across the lives of multiple individuals ... The result is a polyphonic work that reverberates across the wide spectrum of the human experience, lending credence and kindness to differing beliefs without judgment ... Krasnostein...also inserts herself into the story from time to time. Through these multiple perspectives, a triptych of experience is created: the world as seen through the eyes of her subjects, through her own eyes, and finally, through the eyes of the reader in light of this new information. It’s a fascinating and layered approach to writing ... Krasnostein’s strength is in allowing her discomfort and confusion to exist in tandem with others’ beliefs and unorthodox approaches to life.
The Believer shows how much can be achieved by listening to those whose entire view of the world is alien to your own. Krasnostein’s art is that she never places herself on the throne of judgment. She allows strangers to shed light on her own flickering experience of transcendence and the immaterial. She is tender with stories at which the righteous might scoff ... The result is both beautiful and unpredictable. Krasnostein is neither naïve nor cynical ... These savoury experiences will entice even the most sweet tooth.
This would be a very different, and less compelling book, if Krasnostein feigned agnosticism about who is more right then wrong, which she does not ... Here, in Krasnostein’s evident respect for all three of these believers, we see Krasnostein’s own beliefs find shape.
Journalist Krasnostein...delivers an illuminating meditation on the nature of belief and the quest for meaning ... Some of the most moving chapters focus on Annie, a Buddhist-trained 'death doula' and trauma survivor, and Katrina, one of her patients ... Throughout, Krasnostein is measured and respectful of her interviewees while being forthright about beliefs she finds unconvincing or even distasteful. The result is a compassionate and engrossing look at 'how the stories we tell ourselves to deal with the distance between the world as it is and as we’d like it to be can stunt us or save us.'
