Available:*
Library | Call Number | Status |
|---|---|---|
Searching... Independence Public Library | FICTION - HOWATCH | Searching... Unknown |
Bound With These Titles
On Order
Summary
Author Notes
Susan Howatch was born on July 14, 1940 in England. She graduated from the University of London in 1961 and served as a law clerk and secretary in the early 1960s before becoming a full-time writer. She writes in a variety of genres, including mystery, romance, and historical fiction. Her books include The Dark Shore, April's Grave, Penmarric, and the six-volume Starbridge series.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Howatch's outstanding gifts as a storyteller (Wheel of Fortune) are combined here with a new seriousness of theme; the result is a superior novel with bestselling potential. The ``glittering images'' of the title are those we present with pride to the world; in this case, the cherished images of charismatic, successful churchmen, elegant in their clerical robes, whose congregations are moved by their sermons. These are not the TV evangelists of the '80s, however, but clergymen of the 1930s, whose King has had to choose between his throne and marriage with a divorcee. A controversial speech on divorce reform in the House of Lords by the outspoken Bishop of Starbridge (a character based on Herbert Henson, Bishop of Hereford) provokes the Archbishop of Canterbury to dispatch his protege, Charles Ashworth, Doctor of Divinity, to look for any skeletons in the Bishop's closetor in his bedthat the gutter press could use to smear the Bishop and, by extension, the Church. Ashworth, a debonair widower, is immediately attracted to Lyle Christie, paid companion to Carrie Jardine, the Bishop's wife. Lyle first responds to, then flees from, Ashworth's admittedly forward embraces. When he discovers the reasons for her behavior he is hurled into a moral and spiritual crisis. There's no doubt that sex and religion can make exciting bedfellows; add mysteries within mysteries, scenes of charismatic spiritual healing and a deft creation of a middle-class milieu that disappeared with WW II, and you have an engrossing novel that challenges the reader's sense of the fine points of morality. Howatch succeeds in making the subtle and complex theological points of a spiritual transformation both credible and exciting in a narrative whose dramatic tension never abates. BOMC alternate. (October 8) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
With five best-selling British family sagas to her credit, Howatch has turned to something different: an exploration of the private lives of England's high churchmen, spun from the journals of a clergyman who served as the Bishop of Hereford in the 1920's. The result: a diverting and articulate novel in which a young doctor of theology nearly loses his soul and his religious calling probing behind the doors of a bishopric palace. Church politics set the plot in motion, when young Dr. Charles Ashworth is commissioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury to investigate the household of the fiery Bishop of Starbridge, an outspoken critic of the Church's divorce policy. Ashworth is uncomfortable with his role as ""archepiscopal spy,"" but warms to it when he meets the charismatic Starbridge, his dizzy wife, and her attractive but frigid companion, Miss Lyle Christie--who thaws ever so slightly when the young cleric fails desperately, precipitously in love with her. However, after interviewing various guests in the palace, Ashworth leaps to the conclusion that a mÉnage à trois exists at Starbridge, a realization that throws his own fragile emotional life into disarray; he starts hitting the sherry, and even has sex with a former love of the Bishop's--all in a futile attempt to deny his suspicions. After a disastrous, drunken confrontation with Starbridge, he seeks the help of a spiritual counselor, Jon Darrow, the head of an Anglican monastery, who leads him through a personal exorcism, back to the high road of righteousness, and finally into marriage with Miss Christie (after she's liberated from the mÉnage). Probably too arcane for best-sellerdom, with its theology and Jamesian psychologizing, but, all in all, a strong attempt from Howatch at a serious novel, commendable for its clever design and the rich world of the Anglican clergy it reveals. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
When brilliant young theologian Charles Ashworth is sent by his mentor the Archbishop of Canterbury to investigate the possibly scandalous conduct of Alex Jardine, the bishop who criticized his superior's position on Edward VII's marriage, he little expects to embark on an investigation of his own. His cathartic encounter with the hypnotically enigmatic Jardine and his unusual household forces Charles and the reader on an agonizing exploration of the psyche behind the seemingly flat character of a superficial clergyman. Howatch's psychoanalytical study may conclude more quickly and neatly than real life, but that does not detract from its brilliance or impact. Highly recommended. Cynthia Johnson Wheal ler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.