Books

New & Noteworthy Fiction

Chosen by Paul Willis, professor of English at Westmont College and author of ‘The Alpine Tales’ (WordFarm).

Mysterium

Susan Froderberg (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

Susan Froderberg’s Mysterium is based on an ill-fated Himalayan expedition in 1976, led by the American professor Willi Unsoeld. The climb succeeded, but at the terrible cost of Unsoeld’s daughter, who was named for the mountain (Nanda Devi) itself. Over 40 years later, Froderberg transposes this climb into something eerie, elemental, and coldly transcendent. Don’t expect to warm up to the characters on these icy slopes; they remain at a curious distance as they struggle through rockslides, blizzards, love affairs, rivalries, avalanches, and altitude. And yet the novel ends with an evocation of the sublime that has depended on this distance all along.

The Overstory

Richard Powers (Norton)

The Overstory provides an even greater challenge, for its main character is the forest itself. There is a scattering of human characters who are interlinked, sometimes unconsciously, by their sensitivity to elms, oaks, and redwoods as a sentient, palpable force. But the human stories are curiously discontinuous. What takes center stage is the remarkable presence of the trees themselves and how they literally communicate with one another and the world. The prophet Isaiah was onto something: The trees really do clap their hands (55:12).

Port William Novels & Stories: The Civil War to World War II

Wendell Berry

Library of America

Readers in search of a more traditional connection to human characters will appreciate this handsome compilation of Wendell Berry’s Kentucky fiction. The volume contains four novels—Nathan Coulter, A Place on Earth, A World Lost, and Andy Catlett: Early Travels—and 23 short stories, arranged chronologically by content in their common setting: Berry’s fictionalized town of Port William. (A second volume will soon follow.) Berry’s Christian concerns are everywhere clear in the way his characters strive to do right by one another and by the land they so carefully farm. Who needs a mountain when you have a mule-drawn plow?

Also in this issue

The September 2019 cover story reintroduces readers to the ever-expanding world of classical Christian education, in which one might find young students studying Aristotle and Latin alongside the Bible and Faulkner. The movement has tens of thousands of adherents in private schools, charter schools, homeschool cooperatives, and universities across the country.

Our Latest

The Bulletin

Young Republican Texts, Anglican Split, and George Santos Released

Controversial Republican texts, Anglican Communion splits, and George Santos’s sentence is commuted.

Review

Do Evangelical Political Errors Rise to the Level of Heresy?

A Lutheran pastor identifies five false teachings that threaten to corrupt the church’s public witness.

Highlights and Lowlights of 1957

In its first full year of publication, CT looked at Civil Rights, Cold War satellites, artificial insemination, and carefully planned evangelism.

News

Will There Be a Christian Super Bowl Halftime Show?

Conservatives suggest country and Christian artist alternatives for game day.

News

As Madagascar’s Government Topples, Pastors Call for Peace

Gen Z–led protests on the African island nation led to a military takeover.

News

Amid Fragile Cease-Fire, Limited Aid Reaches Gazans

Locals see the price of flour rise and fall as truce is strained and some borders remain closed.

News

Federal Job Cuts Hit Home as Virginia Picks Its Next Governor

Meanwhile, the GOP candidate draws from Trump’s playbook to focus on transgender issues in schools. 

Religious OCD and Me

Scrupulosity latches onto the thing we hold most dear—our relationship with God.

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