A Quality of Loss

The world in the 1970s was a cultural upheaval in many respects. This novel is a story of the deepest disruption but in the quietest and most hidden of places––namely, a monk living in isolation who is turned upside down by recent developments in the Catholic Church motivated by post-modern plans.             Brother Martin journals what he doesn't identify as confusion in D.Q. McInerny's debut novel that paints the portrait of a period in history that many are only now taking more seriously. What happened before the turn into the new millennium, and why are the effects of Vatican Council II more obvious and influential now than they were in the immediate wake of this council? The story of Brother Martin is a time capsule for many readers, but for others it is an insight into life that was stubbornly resistant to modern thinking in favor of the transcendent and eternal with respect to spirituality. McInerny shows through story-telling how much the institution was anything but a hinderance to the human soul and how much we may have lost by rejecting old forms on the sole basis of not having come up with them ourselves. This story is a generational bridge and reveals religious life in a truthful and still generous light.