Tiny Uncertain Miracles
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: November 2022
Genre: Fiction, Literary Fiction
Marick is a haunted chaplain clinging to a compromised conception of faith. Hugo is a scientist, eccentric and brilliant, incubating miracles in the depths of a hospital laundry. Their lives intersect in this understated tale about facing up to the unimaginable realities of existence.
Michelle Johnston’s highly anticipated second novel is literary chiaroscuro with a dash of figurative pointillism; readers must reflect on the entire story in order to fully appreciate the complexities and contrasts of its individual components. Gothic in its attention to various dialectics – life/death, dark/light, doubt/faith – Tiny Uncertain Miracles illuminates the voids between opposing and complementary forces. A post-mortem analysis of Johnston’s unique plot reveals surrealist elements that somehow fit organically into this tableau of hope and suffering.
Johnston’s prose stuns. The usual writerly cliches (masterful, poetic, nuanced, evocative) don’t do her work adequate justice. Tiny Uncertain Miracles is an intelligent exploration of logical fallacies, mysterious proteins, and the unbearable fragility of life.