The Believer: Encounters with the Beginning, the End, and Our Place in the Middle

Journalist Krasnostein (The Trauma Cleaner) delivers an illuminating meditation on the nature of belief and the quest for meaning. In six profiles of individuals and communities animated by a “longing for the unattainable,” Krasnostein examines how belief can both strengthen and weaken interpersonal bonds. She explores supposedly haunted locales with paranormal investigators and talks with researchers at Kentucky’s Creation Museum, who attempt to reconcile scientific principles with their belief in biblical inerrancy. Some of the most moving chapters focus on Annie, a Buddhist-trained “death doula” and trauma survivor, and Katrina, one of her patients. Elsewhere, Krasnostein profiles people who believe in extraterrestrials and UFOs; a community of Mennonites who have moved from rural Pennsylvania to the South Bronx to conduct urban mission work; and a woman who joined a lower Manhattan church after spending half her life imprisoned for the murder of her abusive husband. Throughout, Krasnostein is measured and respectful of her interviewees while being forthright about beliefs she finds unconvincing or even distasteful. The result is a compassionate and engrossing look at “how the stories we tell ourselves to deal with the distance between the world as it is and as we’d like it to be can stunt us or save us.” (Mar.)