fiction
A glimpse of the world beyond
In his new novella, Jon Fosse allows a luminous narrative to unfold at a dreamlike pace.
An island in the storm
Paul Harding’s evocative novel begins with the 1815 hurricane off the New England coast.
Alice McDermott’s tale of American Catholics in Vietnam
What is the kindest, least condescending help that privileged Christians can offer to the wider world?
The artistic vision of Jesus
Aaron Rosen finds that Jesus looks at the world the way artists see their subjects.
A story of water and faith
Abraham Verghese’s new novel tells an epic tale of a family of Thomas Christians in modern India.
Rose Macaulay was ahead of her time
In Crewe Train, the neglected Anglo-Catholic novelist tells the story of a woman who resolutely does not fit in.
Meet Gil, the protector
The protagonist of Lydia Millet’s new novel is like a mother hen, both to his neighbors and to the birds.
Prayer as mourning, mourning as prayer
In Jon Fosse’s Septology, a tragic vision of faith shines with a luminous darkness.
by Mac Loftin
A complex story of relationships and religion
The protagonist of Alice Elliott Dark’s novel gives readers the flawed heroine they crave.
The novelist and the theologian
I’m trying to live as Haruki Murakami writes: with questions but not an end in mind.
by Brian Bantum
Michelle Huneven’s homage to church life
A novel posing as a memoir that is really a sympathetic comedy
A 21st-century Polish epic
Based on historical events, Olga Tokarczuk’s massive novel is simultaneously heartbreaking and comic.
Tara Stringfellow’s fictional family brings a real city to life
Like Memphis, Memphis is gritty—filled with danger, tragedy, and humor.
When nature is its own protagonist
Amitav Ghosh’s book sings the ancestral story of nutmeg.
Joel Agee’s novel of childhood wonder and terror
Fantastical things surround six-year-olds everywhere.
A robot learns to be a child
The central character of Kazuo Ishiguro’s virtuosic 2021 novel is an “Artificial Friend” with a young girl’s body.
At Tara Isabella Burton’s fictional boarding school, the hunger for transcendence gets dark
A tale of beauty, religion, and how easy it is to exploit them
Lauren Groff builds a proto-feminist medieval world
But the enchantment of Matrix is ultimately broken by her language.
by Amy Frykholm
A novel about purity culture and its harm
At its core, God Spare the Girls is about a family history doomed to repeat itself.
15 London children died in a World War II attack
Francis Spufford’s novel imagines the lives they might otherwise have led.