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Verge by Z Egloff
Review By Robert Hodges
An aspiring film maker, Claire McMinn has a long way to go to reach her goals. She must get out of her run down dusty town home in the least appealing part of the California Central Valley. She needs to graduate from the local community college, and free herself from some messy relationships, family and otherwise. Claire is a recovering alcoholic. While alcohol does not tempt her now, one thing she did when drinking poses a problem. She had been making great progress in a film-making course in college, but one drunken night she had sex with her film teacher’s wife. Worse, she filmed their love making. Even worse the professor has seen the film and kicked her out of the program. Without the school’s equipment, she cannot make a film that will get her into an advanced program in Los Angeles or San Francisco.
Help is on the way. A girlfriend, who is often more trouble than she is worth, takes Claire to a local community center run by an order of Roman Catholic nuns, or “ women religious” as she learns to say. These are contemporary sisters, no black habit and they live in a house in town. Could Claire borrow their expensive film making equipment? Yes, but only if she makes a film about the center. No problem with lots of material like the homeless, a children’s program, the place is awash in filmable material. Claire can charm people with her passion to film. She needs a tracking shot down a corridor into the chapel. Simply walking with camera in hand will result in a jerky effect. Her solution? Enrique, a little kid in the center, pushes Claire down the corridor very slowly in a wheel chair as she films. The Center hires her to make a public relations film.
Claire’s contact in the Center is Sister Hilary. Claire finds the young member of the order very attractive. Hilary, presumably celibate, and devoted to God and the order, finds Claire very attractive. I found the complicated, sometimes tormented, relationship between the two women fascinating. Verge tells the story in a style that is witty and always ingenious.