A new edition of Rumor Godden's masterful work will delight both the pious and impious.
“The motto was ‘Pax,’ but the word was set in a circle of thorns.” So begins Rumer Godden’s In this House of Brede, a masterful novel about the cloistered life of religious sisters.
The opening line is a proper manifesto, proclaiming to the reader all that must be known about the encounter the novel promises. The reader will find peace; it leaps from the pages. It is a truly otherworldly peace, inspired by the author’s own devotion to the Benedictine way of life. But it is not a romantic peace. Human vices and sufferings, real moments where the ways of this world seem at odds with the law of the Kingdom encircle and entwine that peace. And the beauty of the novel is that, like Karamazov’s kiss, the fictional life of Philippa Talbot contests doubt and disbelief, to bring about conversion of heart.