The Wind in the Wheat by Reed Arvin

First published: Nashville: T. Nelson, 1994

Genre(s): Novel

Subgenre(s): Literary fiction

Core issue(s): Conscience; humility; service; simplicity

Principal characters

• Andrew Miracle, the protagonist, a contemplative, devout young man and gifted church musician from Kansas
• Cy Mathews, Andrew’s pastor in Kansas
• Alison Miracle, Andrew’s mother
• John van Grimes, a music manager from Nashville who discovers Andrew
• Carolyn Hemphill, John’s assistant who becomes Andrew’s girlfriend

Overview

In The Wind in the Wheat, novelist Reed Arvin demonstrates the nobility of following one’s own calling, as well as the perils of power, fame, and wealth, even in a religious context. His protagonist, twenty-year-old Andrew Miracle, begins the story as a somewhat naïve idealist, adrift in a world of ordinary people. In the beginning of the novel, Andrew has just received a brief and simple vision from God, in the form of a voice saying that Andrew is love. Andrew lives with his mother and works on the farm built by her and his deceased father near the small town of Rose Hill, Kansas.

Andrew’s faith finds expression in the intimate, spiritual music he composes and performs at his church, where he has quietly become a small-town attraction. Andrew’s obvious talent prompts the church’s enthusiastic pastor, Cy Mathews, to arrange for Andrew to meet Cy’s friend, John van Grimes, who comes to the church accompanying Heaven’s Voices, a group of young musicians managed by John and his small Nashville company. After the concert, the three men meet, and Andrew plays and sings for John. Extremely impressed, John arranges for the group to have breakfast at the Miracle farm the next morning. With his mother’s blessing, Andrew agrees to move to Nashville and join Heaven’s Voices.

On his arrival at the Nashville airport, Andrew is met by John’s young assistant, Carolyn Hemphill, who introduces him to the city and to some of the workings of the Christian music business. The two form an immediate friendship that quickly evolves into romance.

At his first meeting with John in Nashville, Andrew is surprised not only to be joined by two executives from Dove Records, a Christian music label, but also to be informed that John would like Andrew not to join Heaven’s Voices as planned but instead to become a solo recording artist. Andrew eventually signs a management contract with John and a recording contract with Dove. Both contracts contain unusual provisions not beneficial to the inexperienced and trusting Andrew, and John secretly pockets an extraordinary finder’s fee from Dove.

Andrew’s success continues, and his life becomes a whirlwind with promotional parties, photo shoots, radio airplay, a music video, and a slot on another artist’s concert tour. Dove hires a big-name producer to oversee the recording of Andrew’s debut album and his trademark song, “Lost Without You,” which becomes a hit. Andrew and his song gain the attention of Atlantic Records, a secular label that releases selected Dove albums to the general music marketplace. Atlantic agrees to commit a large amount of money to the promotion of Andrew’s record, with the stipulation that the word “Jesus” be removed from “Lost Without You” so that it would then strike most listeners as an inoffensive love song, not as a song directed to God. Andrew reluctantly agrees, when his manager John urges him to accept, reassuring him that Atlantic’s money and promotion will allow Andrew’s ministry to reach others it otherwise would not.

After his first tour, Andrew takes time off to visit his hometown. There he learns that his mother has cancer. Within weeks, forgoing radical treatment for the chance to plant flowers, to refinish some tables built by her husband, and to see her son play at church, Alison dies, leaving Andrew feeling even more isolated than before. Even his relationship with Carolyn, once a great comfort, becomes strained and distant, and John angrily confronts Andrew about the singer’s reticence in the events of his career, many of them outside of Andrew’s control.

Riding a wave of stardom and ignoring his own misgivings, Andrew headlines his own concert tour. On the day of the final concert, Carolyn secretly flies out to see him before the show and tells him how much she misses the Andrew she first met, who success has turned into a withdrawn and irritable person. This encounter affects Andrew’s performance on stage, and during the speaking portion of the concert, he departs from his normal script and reveals his uncertainties to the audience. This prompts an emergency visit from John the next day, during which Andrew declares his intention to end his music career and John threatens to sue him if he does. Their meeting is ended by a phone call from Carolyn, who has accidentally discovered the unfair terms of Andrew’s contract with John.

Armed with this information, Andrew seeks legal recourse of his own, and a lawyer persuades John to dissolve the contract, though John keeps a substantial amount of money at Andrew’s request. With Carolyn as his new representative, Andrew embarks on the final event of his short but brilliant music career, an appearance on a national television talk show, where Andrew performs “Lost Without You” with all its original lyrics intact. Andrew soon returns to Kansas, this time with Carolyn, where they are quietly married by Cy on the night they arrive and become the new caretakers of the Miracle farm.

Christian Themes

Andrew’s struggle to follow his own conscience provides a framework for the narrative of The Wind in the Wheat. In the beginning, Andrew is captured by his vision from God and motivated by his desire to serve others, but he soon sees the talents he wants to be used by God being used by others to bring gain to themselves and to Andrew. The resulting power, fame, and wealth are all benefits he does not seek but that he decides to accept when John and others convince him they will enable his ministry to reach more people. In the end, Andrew finds this path to service unacceptable, and he abandons it to pursue a simpler life.

The author uses the image of a larger-than-life promotional poster of Andrew to comment on humility and self-image. As the unassuming young man from Kansas begins his climb to fame, John and Dove Records hold a large party to introduce Andrew and his album to members of the media and music business insiders. One of the items revealed at the party is a nine-foot-square poster featuring a retouched photograph of Andrew, in clothes and with a facial expression not of his own choosing. Several times later, the author contrasts the poster version of Andrew, seemingly perfect and full of power in his self-confidence, to the genuine Andrew, confident but humble in his calling from God.

In one of his confrontations with John, Andrew speaks of the handful of people in his hometown church who faithfully stack chairs after each service, important work, but mundane and thankless. Andrew relates the work of these chair stackers to his own former playing at the church and at the local nursing home, often for those who did not understand his talents. He envies the simplicity of the chair stackers and speculates whether it is they, and not he, who are truly serving God and already rule the world in God’s eyes.

Sources for Further Study

Arvin, Reed. “Romeo Must Die: Christian Publishers Censor More than Profanity in Their Quest Not to Offend.” Regeneration Quarterly 8, no. 1 (Spring, 2002): 6-8. Arvin’s first-person critique of editorial censorship at evangelical publishers, suggesting much of classic literature would not meet their narrow standards.

Mort, John. “The Christian Alternative.” In Christian Fiction. Greenwood Village, Colo.: Libraries Unlimited, 2002. Sets the background for contemporary Christian fiction and evangelical novels in particular; The Wind in the Wheat is cited as a distinguished example.

Riess, Jana. “Fiction’s Growing Pains: The Awkward Adolescence of the Christian Novel.” Publishers Weekly 249, no. 24 (June 17, 2002): S4-S9. Comments on the quality of Christian fiction; Arvin compares editorial direction from religious and secular publishers.