Shortly before Br. Thomas Augustine Fielding solidifies a lifelong commitment to his monastic community, a traumatic encounter with an abusive priest plunges the novice into terror and doubt. Reeling and uncertain, he reaches out to his friend, artistic rival, and former lover, Angele Solomon, with hopes that she can help him to speak the difficult truth. As she attempts to advocate for her friend, Angele must ask how the scars left by their common past—as well as newer harms—can ever be healed or transcended. The wider inquiries demanded next will transfigure how both of them picture a range of human and divine things: time and memory; art and agency; trust and responsibility; and what it might mean to know real freedom.
Katy Carl is the author of As Earth Without Water (Wiseblood Books, 2021) and of Praying the Great O Antiphons: My Soul Magnifies the Lord (Catholic Truth Society, 2021, forthcoming) and is editor in chief of Dappled Things magazine.
