Search, by Michelle Huneven

Search is a novel about a search committee. The setting is the fictional Arroyo Unitarian Universalist Church located in Altadena, California. The committee’s task is to identify a candidate to be the church’s new minister.

For a Unitarian Universalist, living in Los Angeles, and familiar with the local churches, part of the interest in Huneven’s book is decoding the keys in this Roman a clef.

The Arroyo church is clearly the Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church in Pasadena. Arroyo is slightly smaller in membership than Neighborhood, and features an outdoor garden that Neighborhood doesn’t posses. But many of the other details echo the truth. Both the fictional and real life church offices are housed in literal houses: an “Italianate mansion” in the novel, a beautiful craftsman in real life. The previous minister, Tom Fox, who announces his resignation at the beginning of the novel must be Jim Nelson, who served Neighborhood Church from 2004 until 2015 when he retired. Tom shares Jim’s devotion to golf and his casual confidence in his manner of running the church. The church’s beloved previous minister named Sparlo Pleasant in the novel seems most like Brandoch Lovely, called “Brandy” who served from 1969 to 1993.

The narrator is Dana Potowski, a member of the church, a food writer and restaurant critic and the author of a few food related books. She’s looking for her next book project when the invitation to join the search committee arrives and she hatches a plan to serve the church’s leadership need and let the search serve her literary need. Huneven’s novel, then, poses as Dana’s memoir of the search year. That she gets selected to be the committee Secretary covers the fact that she takes constant notes. Except for a preface to the “second edition” at the beginning, expressing surprise at how popular her memoir turned out to be, and a “where are they now” postlude at the end, set three years after the completed search, the action of the novel is confined to the one year of the search process.

The drama in the novel comes from a generational split in the committee. Dana belongs to the older group, although she protests she’s only in her 50s. Her allegiance is to the older type of professorial preacher/minister exemplified by Sparlo Pleasant, the minister when she joined the church, and her friend Tom Fox, who continued in that style. The other older folks on the committee are the elderly matriarch Belinda, and Charlotte, a lesbian, and Adrian a black man who’s a psychologist working on a TV script (LA cliche, I know, but sort of true), and a man whose name I don’t remember who married in to one of the pillar families of the church. (I’ve already given my copy of the book to a friend so I don’t have it in front of me.)

The younger characters are Riley, a Cal Tech scientist who really only joined the church for the bell choir and who is involved somewhat reluctantly in a polyamorous relationship; Curtis, a gay Fillipino who felt unwelcome in the evangelical church he had been attending and is so new to Unitarian Universalism he hasn’t even joined Arroyo as a member. Most importantly, we have Jennie, presented as a busy young mother, tattooed, fiercely opinionated, and determined that her church will not replace one old, white, man with another.

Huneven has her committee track the UUA recommended search process. There is the initial retreat facilitated by the search consultant and the anti-bias training. There is the congregational survey and cottage meetings for the committee to get a sense of the congregation’s need. Next, the committee prepares the congregational record and packet of materials to share with the interested ministers. There is the initial reading of the minister’s packets, and then that list narrowed down to a smaller number of “pre-candidates” for the search committee to meet in person, and then, finally, the search committee’s choice among the pre-candidates for the minister who will be the single candidate presented to the congregation for an up or down vote.

The scenes of the novel take place either in search committee member’s homes or over lunches where Dana, the restaurant critic, invites other members to tag along with her as she prepares a newspaper review. The search committee always meets over dinner so there are descriptions of the meals, and recipes at the back. I paid no attention to the recipes. Riley doesn’t cook but invents specialty cocktails that are also described.

The novel begins humorously. The characters are funny types. The human foibles of a church community are charming. But hints of ugliness also creep in. Jennie, it seems, was awarded a place on the search committee only because her mother made a generous donation to the church. Curtis’s presence on the committee violates the church bylaws because he isn’t actually a church member. Despite the anti-bias training none of the search committee members have a problem insisting that the next minister be a woman. And Jennie’s constant complaining about boring, old, men, finally receives a call-out from Charlotte for ageism (though not for the sexism).

As the novel and search year progresses the tone turns darker. It’s clear the younger members defer to Jennie and she works to advance her own preferences, not to represent the best match for the congregation. Dana grows more disillusioned and angrier. Charlotte clings to her need that the search not be a “failed” search which happens when a committee cannot agree on a candidate. Poor Belinda suffers a stroke and is unable to communicate during the final meetings. Adrian and the other fellow (sorry, guy) are persuaded to support Jennie’s candidate with a kind of ho-hum, let’s give it a try, dereliction of duty.

The final two choices are: Alana Kapoor, Jennie’s choice, a young woman from a theater background, with no experience leading a church, and whose few sermons are high in theatricality but low in intellectual heft. Huneven stacks the deck here when she reveals that Rev. Kapoor’s newer, better sermons were actually ghostwritten for her by a mentor who wishes to promote his protege. Dana’s preferred candidate is an older, seasoned, black woman: thoughtful, kind, and an excellent preacher. It’s clear who the better choice would be for the congregation, but the committee presents Alana as their candidate. Dana bites her tongue during the congregational vote. Alana is called by a vote of 86%, one percent more than the minimum required.

The three years later postlude shows the sad outcome of a poor choice. Membership has declined. Giving has declined. Several members of the search committee barely attend or have moved away. The church’s Assistant Minister has moved on. The beautiful church garden is suffering because the paid gardeners have been let go. The new minister shrugs off the problems as due to the general decline of churches and is eagerly hoping to restart her acting career. For a book that opens with a light touch (recipes!) it ends as tragedy.

If I were the minister whom Neighborhood eventually called, I wouldn’t feel too badly or take Huneven’s characterization too personally. Huneven is writing a novel not a documentary. And her critique seems more focused on the failures of the search process, rather than the outcome.

Huneven points out early in the novel that other denominations assign ministerial placement to denominational professionals who have more information and more accountability for good outcomes for ministers and congregations. Our congregational polity in the UU tradition prevents that kind of directed process. But the UU alternative is to leave our searches to good-spirited amateurs, lay committees with no particular training, who may not understand the seriousness of the undertaking, or who, as volunteers, simply cannot give the search the time and attention it deserves. As an HR professional, I know how hiring managers can be charmed by a nicely dressed, outgoing candidate they meet superficially and neglect to think deeply about the needs of the job. I have seen search committees work effectively and conscientiously, with happy results all around, but Search is a cautionary tale of what can go wrong for congregations and ministers if they don’t approach the matter carefully. If I were the UUA I would make the novel the common read for next year.

P.S. I just realized, as I was typing this up, that I own a copy of one of Michelle Huneven’s earlier novels, Jamesland. I was given a paperback copy as a parting gift when I left my last church from a man in the congregation who owns a used book store. He told me there was a Unitarian minister in the novel. I set it aside to read later but never got to it. Maybe I’ll read that next.