SUMMARY
There’s a lot to love about the women of Saint Lydia’s in San Francisco. Head Beacon Beka and her sidekick Dot turned out to be very good at getting rid of a predatory male pastor. Female church leaders were rare in 1976, but they found an ordained woman to shepherd their flock. The five Beacons, their prickly minister and a young Mexican prostitute all took risks, made mistakes and followed their hearts to set a wild new course for their historic interracial, interdenominational congregation in “The City.”
The Beacons reveals the souls of lay leaders, how they sought spiritual guidance, earned the respect they deserved and gained the freedom to run their church in an egalitarian way. Younger readers of diverse ethnicities and orientations will glimpse pioneering feminine faith in action. Older women will almost certainly remember fights for equality during those chaotic 1970s, and San Franciscans will get a fresh view of that infamous era of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll through the stories of a few memorable Christian visionaries.
BLURBS
Judith Favor offers us a delicious, saucy slice of mid-70s San Francisco. The Beacons provides generous servings of the beautiful city plus a kaleidoscope of characters, lifestyles and spiritual practices. Deeply textured and finely tuned, this novel crackles with lively energy.
Mary Atwood, Episcopal priest
It isn’t often that readers interested in religion have a chance to learn about the inner workings of a small but active congregation, especially when the story entails conflicts between clergy and parish leadership. Judith Favor has beautifully provided such a look with her fictional well-trained older Episcopal priest. The long-time church “Beacons,” each well-described, struggle with their pro and con emotions while the first-time reverend agonizes over her inability to persuade them to an orthodox faith. A carefully crafted microcosm of American congregational struggles in our post-Christiandom era. [Christendom?]
Jean Lesher, religious book editor
Judith Favor has created a delightful gang of deacons here in The Beacons! You will come to know and love them as they grapple with their own psyches, their collective mission, and the evolving conditions of their time and place. The superbly drawn focus of this tale—the trials and tribulations of their courageous choice for replacement priest—rings true and deep, and will leave you hoping for more.
Michael Kirk, artist/designer/editor
Judith Favor’s novel lives next door to Armistead Maupin’s San Francisco of the Seventies. In The Beacons we glimpse a radical Christianity—radical because women took over leadership of an interracial church. Favor gives an insider’s look at what happened in a place few of us have imagined.
John Brantingham, author of Let Us All Now Pray to Our Own Strange Gods
[John Brantingham’s work has appeared in hundreds of magazines in the United States and England, and his poetry has been featured on Garrison Keillor’s Writer’s Almanac. His other books