Carlene Bauer's Frances and Bernard
A sentence preceding the novel notes that it was inspired by Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell, and I almost wish it hadn't, because I spent the whole book wondering about literary gossip and how much of this was based on fact. Which doesn't do the book justice AT ALL. Anyway, this is an epistolary novel, set in the late 50s, about two writers who meet at an artists' colony and decide to correspond (the novel also occasionally includes letters to/from other characters, but the heart is these two). For the first half or so, I was kind of like, it's nice to read such an intellectual conversation, but there was a little too much about Catholicism for this Jewish reader (there is a LOT about Catholocism, and it makes me want to recommend it to a couple of theologians I know). I wasn't really emotionally engaged. But by the end I was quietly weeping. Really lovely and heartbreaking. Now I need to go reread some O'Connor. A-.
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A review copy was provided by the publisher. This book will be released on Tuesday.
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