Making Believe

Ethan Soames meets Roy Train in 1959, when they are both students at an Episcopal seminary in Manhattan. With his incessant challenging of theological dictates and questioning of matters of faith, Roy alienates his professors and classmatesexcept for Ethan, who here tells of the life-long friendship between the two priests. It is not always easy for Ethan to stick by the irrepressible Roy, whose unorthodox ways and singular conscience inevitably lead him into trouble. Yet Ethan manages to show up whenever Roy needs him: at a heated civil-rights demonstation in Alabama in the late 1960s; at student uprisings at a large Iowa university in 1970; at a meeting of the Committee on Theology, which intends to try Roy for heresy and relieve him of his duties as a bishop; and finally at his deathbed in Egypt. This is more than the beautifully told story of an intricate friendship; the novel also offers an intriguing perspective on the religious and political turbulence of recent decades. (April 25)