Fiction. In the tradition of Flannery O'Connor, THE UNFINISHED LIFE OF N. scrutinizes the quiet ambitions of normal people, their everyday fictions concerning others and their own humanity and goodness, as it follows Nafula, the innocent but not na ve protagonist, from the backwoods of Wisconsin to AIDS-stricken regions of Africa, and, at last, through a rehabilitation program at a Mental Health home. Nafula is the granddaughter of a local-celebrity preacher whose church-without-a-church religion plays a large part in propelling her into a "missionary" existence. As does that same grandfather's sexual abuse. Soon her work in Africa confounds her self-identification as a "helper." In the novel's final turn, Nafula must reckon with the terrible speed of mercy."