A Medieval Morality Tale!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

                                    The irony of Samantha Harvey's novel, as far as I am concerned, is that it moves backward in time, just like the musical "Merrily We Roll Along," now playing at the Laura Pels, under the auspices of the Roundabout, and which I am scheduled to see at the matinee on March 2.

                                      Despite the on cover comparison to Virginia Woolf, the novel reads like a more literate, medieval version of "Peyton Place."  And though it is Anglican, those filled with plenty of Catholic or Christian guilt, will be shaken, as it plays fast and righteous with going to Hell, or Purgatory, neither of which seem pleasant.  I was quaking in my boots.

                                       Father John Reve, pastor for the town of Oakham, tries to unearth the death behind the town's wealthiest citizen, Thomas Newman.  Was it a suicide, and why?  Or a murder?  I won't tell you, but, as the book unfolds backwards, so, like "Peyton Place" and Henry Bellamann's earlier "Kings Row," the sins and transgressions of the entire community are laid bare.  Anyone might have been responsible for Newman's death, but who actually was?

                                          The story keeps moving, but because of the time period, the novel moves in archaic language, slowly and deliberately, as though trying to channel Hilary Mantel.  It works as a mystery and an examination of medieval morality, the latter, in some cases, still played out today.

                                             And, yes, the title is important to the plot.

                                             Yet, something seems missing--a pulse, a beat. While more accessible than something like Iain Pears' "An Instance Of The Fingerpost," it is not more readers of light fiction.  This is a novel grounded in a solid literary and historical foundation.

                                                Sure to curl those guilty, Christian hearts, darlings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!