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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
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English
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THE DEARLY BELOVED

Cara Wall

A luminous debut novel for fans of Ann Patchett and Courtney Sullivan that traces two married couples whose lives become entangled when the husbands become co-pastors at a famed New York City parish in the 1960s.
Charles and Lily, James and Nan. They are brought together in Greenwich Village in 1965 when Charles and James are jointly hired to steward the historic First Presbyterian Church. In The Dearly Beloved, we follow these two couples through courtship and marriage, to their inevitable connection in New York City in 1965.

Charles is destined to succeed his father as an esteemed professor of history at Harvard, until an unorthodox lecture about faith leads him to ministry. How then, can he fall in love with Lily--fiercely intellectual, elegantly sternafter she tells him with certainty that she will never believe in God? And yet, how can he not?

James, the youngest son in a hardscrabble Chicago family, spent much of his youth angry at his alcoholic father and avoiding his anxious mother. Nan grew up in Mississippi, the devout and beloved daughter of a minister and a debutante. James's escape from his desperate circumstances leads him to Nan and, despite his skepticism of hope in all its forms, her gentle, constant faith changes the course of his life.

In The Dearly Beloved, we follow these two couples through decades of love and friendship, jealousy and understanding, forgiveness and commitment. Against the backdrop of turbulent changes facing the city and the church's congregation, these four forge improbable paths through their evolving relationships, each struggling with uncertainty, heartbreak, and joy. The novel is a poignant meditation on faith and reason, marriage and children, and the ways we find meaning in our lives.

Cara Wall is a graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop and Stanford University. While at Iowa, Cara taught fiction writing in the undergraduate creative writing department as well as at the Iowa Young Writer's Studio in her capacity of founder and inaugural director. She went on to teach middle school English and history and has been published by Glamour, Salon, and the San Francisco Chronicle. She lives in New York City with her family and The Dearly Beloved is her first novel.
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Book

Published 2019-08-13 by Simon & Schuster

Book

Published 2019-08-13 by Simon & Schuster

Comments

"Compelling ... a sneakily addictive read."

"You don't have to have ever darkened the door of a church to enjoy this book."

"Wall's clean prose and easy ability to move between the thoughts of her protagonists turn what could seem an inquiry into the nature of religion into a visceral look at how it binds people together."

Quiet, sharply observed and stunning in its simple compassion, The Dearly Beloved is a powerful meditation on friendship, calling, marriage and what happens when faith meets truly hard times. Read more...

"When I began reading The Dearly Beloved I braced for piety, worried it might be a book only a believer could appreciate. Instead, I found myself carried along by Cara Wall's luminous prose, and then by these characters and their stories. I saw myself in their doubts, in their hopes. There is no moralizing here, only empathy. When I arrived at the end I felt absolutely lifted by the spirit of the story."

"This wonderful book has all the things that are hardest to find in literature: good marriages sustained by abiding love; nourishing friendships that endure trials; nuanced explorations of religious faith; and characters who strive to do good for others while battling their own demons. What it has, in short, is that hardest-won of qualities in a novel: genuine goodness."

"An unusually assured debut, the book examines faith with revelatory nuance ... The beauty of this slow burner will stay with you, religious or not."

Here is the power of the novel in its simplest, richest form: bearing intimate witness to human beings grappling with their faith and falling in love...This is exactly why we read literary fiction.

Author Cara Wall was profiled by Publishers Weekly (5/13) Read more...

Impressive debut... A novel for nonbelievers as much as true believers and one with deeply human characters anyone will want to follow.

The book has appeared on "Best of" lists in the New York Post (8/4), Refinery29 (7/31), Entertainment Weekly (online, 7/31), and Vogue (online, 6/1).

Underlying the very readable, honestly human propulsion of her characters' lives in their near-entirety, Wall does a tricky thing quite well, exploring the facts of faith and love at both their most exalting and most trying.

Finely drawn and written with compassion and care, and every word is precisely chosen. Read more...

THE DEARLY BELOVED is an Indie Next pick and an Apple Best of the Month pick!

"I am not a Christian - not a religious person in any way - yet the explorations of faith in The Dearly Beloved speak to me on levels of extraordinary emotional depth, and with gut-wrenching meaning. I will cherish this book for a long, long time."

"Compelling ... These human loves are beautifully brought to life in The Dearly Beloved. A moving portrait of love and friendship set against a backdrop of social change."

Writing with restrained lyricism, Wall's debut offers a kind of literary chamber music, combining the viewpoints of a quartet of characters across multiple decades and events. Finely drawn and paced and written with intense compassion.A moving, eloquent exploration of faith and its response to the refining fire of life's challenges. Read more...

A rare and intellectually stimulating outing. Read more...

The New York Times rounded-up THE DEARLY BELOVED as a "Book to Watch" in August (7/31): "A moving portrait of love and friendship set against a backdrop of social change." Read more...