EXILES by Ron Hansen

I first discovered Ron Hansen when I stumbled across his 1992 title, Mariette in Ecstasy, an exquisitely evoked novel which takes place in a convent in rural upstate New York just after the turn of the century. In Exiles, Hansen returns to a portrayal of religious community, presenting an interwoven tale of the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins and the five exiled nuns whose deaths compelled him to write his poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland. I loved Exiles. It is at once the drama of a shipwreck, the study of a vocation, and a meticulously researched historical inquiry.

THE GOOD THIEF by Hannah Tinti

I really enjoyed this tale set in the dark woods and gritty city streets of 19th century New England. Our protagonist is a scrappy twelve year old, the one-handed orphan named Ren, who we first meet while he is still living among his fellow orphans in St. Anthony's orphanage for boys. Early in the story, Ren is adopted by a mysterious young man named Benjamin Nab who claims to be Ren's long lost older brother. Nab is a shameless con artist and it isn't long before he employs Ren as a prop to advance his less than honest schemes. This rich and rollicking fable is a deeply satisfying and highly entertaining read. It has its darker moments, including grave robberies and beatings, murder and bar-room violence, and yet there is a wistful gentleness about the story, injected via the character and conscience of Ren. In her Acknowledgments, the author thanks her mother for coming up with the title of this book. It is a title aptly chosen, and one that left me pondering the actual identity of Tinti's "Good Thief."