Final Payments by Mary Gordon
"Final Payments" is the debut novel by Mary Gordon, set during the transformative years following the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s, a period marked by a shift towards more liberal practices within the Roman Catholic Church. The story revolves around Isabel Moore, a dedicated daughter who spends over a decade caring for her ailing father, who embodies a strict, conservative approach to life. Isabel's unwavering devotion is rooted in her love for her father, whom she regards almost as a god-like figure, even as she grapples with her own disillusionment with church teachings.
As Isabel's life is defined by her caregiving role, she finds solace in daily rituals that bring structure to her existence. However, after her father's passing, she faces the challenge of redefining her identity outside of her sacrificial role. This transition leads her to confront her own needs and desires, ultimately compelling her to seek forgiveness for her past actions. The narrative explores themes of familial duty, personal sacrifice, and the complexities of faith, reflecting broader societal changes within the Catholic Church. Gordon's work resonates across generations, as it addresses the enduring impact of Catholic values and the struggles for self-identity amidst traditional expectations.
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Final Payments by Mary Gordon
First published: 1978
The Work
Mary Gordon’s first novel, Final Payments, is set in the decade after the historic Second Vatican Council, which convened in 1962. The council moved toward greater liberalism in Roman Catholicism. The novel deals with Isabel Moore, a devoted daughter who spends eleven years tending to her ailing father in his decline and death.
At thirty, she has given up a good portion of her youth, not with the aim of being a good Catholic, which the church members and many acquaintances assume, but because she loves her father and is doing what she needs to do. He is, in a sense, her God incarnate.
She no longer, in truth, holds with the tenets of the church, but she is a darling of the priests, who applaud her dutiful dedication but sometimes have trouble remembering her name. She is defined in terms of her deeds rather than who she is. To the townspeople, she is a bit of an oddity, an adoring child who never puts herself first.
Her father, an arrogant conservative, is not always lovable. He is judgmental, unforgiving of human foibles, mostly uncaring. He approves of her, however, and she can make him laugh. Even after one of the final strokes leaves his face expressionless, she can feel the convulsions of laughter ripple through his body.
Her days are prescribed: Mornings are spent getting him ready for the day, lunch coming as the first event. She is comforted by the daily rituals: shaving him, singing his favorite songs, reading aloud to him while he scratches her head. Her life has direction and form. Whether neurosis or devotion drives her actions is immaterial. She cannot have it any other way.
It is when she gains her freedom and has only herself to look after that she falters, failing at first to understand that her days of presumed sainthood are over. It is then that she realizes that she rather relished the role, and so, after a period of succumbing to what she considers human weakness, she once again determines to dedicate her life to goodness, to return to ingrained ritual, to the Catholic ideal of loving the unlovable.
Isabel assigns herself the task of seeing to the needs of an elderly, despised former housekeeper. She absorbs the woman’s abuse until Isabel thinks that she has made her final payments to her father, to the church, and to her guilt. Her act of forgiveness, particularly forgiveness of herself, seems quite in accord with the tenor of the period of flux in the church.
Gordon’s novel speaks of a time shortly past in which some Catholic parents had no greater wish than for sons to become priests, their daughters nuns. It deals with a kind of Catholicism that is so much a part of the fabric of the church that many never lose it. Even after the easing of church rules, many Catholics understand the mindset of this novel, thus making it a timeless work. Gordon gives a new spin to an old theme.
Bibliography
Becker, Brenda L. “Virgin Martyrs.” The American Spectator, August, 1981, 28-32. This acerbic analysis notes that many of Gordon’s religious themes are hackneyed relics of James Joyce and many feminist writers, but Becker praises the quality of Gordon’s detailed observation and her ability to characterize the Catholic church both in its repressive qualities and in its triumphs.
Cooper-Clark, Diana. “An Interview with Mary Gordon.” Commonweal 107 (May 9, 1980): 270-273. Gordon addresses Final Payments at length, discussing Isabel as one who sees everything in metaphors of Catholicism even though her path of self-identification is not a religious one. Gordon also discusses her debt to Virginia Woolf, about whom she was writing her dissertation while working on Final Payments.
Gordon, Mary. “More Catholic than the Pope: Archbishop Lefebvre and a Romance of the One True Church.” Harpers 257 (July, 1978): 58-69. Gordon discusses her own Catholic upbringing and her visit to the Society of St. Pius X, radically conservative followers of Archbishop Lefebvre. She writes of having sought “miracle, mystery, and authority” but finally being disillusioned.
Gordon, Mary. “Radical Damage: An Interview with Mary Gordon.” Interview by M. Dieter Keyishian. Literary Review 32 (Fall, 1988): 69-82. This informative interview gives substantial space to Final Payments. Gordon discusses her powerful relationship with her own father and with the Roman Catholic church.
Gray, Francine du Plessix. “A Religious Romance.” The New York Times Book Review, February 15, 1981, 1, 24, 26. Gray gives primary attention to religious themes in Final Payments and in The Company of Women (1981) and notes Gordon’s conclusion in both novels that friendship is the prime ingredient in human happiness.
Lodge, David. “The Arms of the Church.” Times Literary Supplement, September 1, 1978, 965. Lodge analyzes the character of the narrator, praising Gordon’s portrayal but noting that other characters are less well drawn. He also looks at the novel’s picture of the Catholic church and sees Isabel’s father as a metaphor for the church’s power.
Neary, John M. “Mary Gordon’s Final Payments: A Romance of the One True Language.” Essays in Literature 17 (Spring, 1990): 94-110. Neary focuses on Isabel’s central crisis, which he sees as a realization that the human world cannot provide an absolute presence of God, of parent, or of an ordered world.
Schreiber, Le Anne. “A Talk with Mary Gordon.” The New York Times Book Review 86 (February 15, 1981): 26-28. Gordon points out that a central issue for her is the phenomenon of women who could be very powerful in their own lives and in their outside accomplishments but instead buckle under the authority of men.
Ward, Susan. “In Search of ‘Ordinary Human Happiness’: Rebellion and Affirmation in Mary Gordon’s Novels.” In Faith of a (Woman) Writer, edited by Alice Kessler-Harris and William McBrien. New York: Greenwood, 1988. Ward addresses three themes that run through Gordon’s work: Self-assertive, intelligent young women must rebel against any code they were raised to obey unthinkingly; fathers are often dominant influences and growing up must involve replacement and reconciliation with the father; and patriarchal institutions offer little hope to modern women.
Wolcott, James. “More Catholic than the Pope.” Esquire 95 (March, 1981): 21, 23. Wolcott discusses Gordon’s second novel, The Company of Women (1981), comparing it to Final Payments. He faults both novels for inadequate characterization and overly refined writing.