In "Children of the Black Sabbath" [Anne Hébert] poses the timely question of whether a beautiful young girl from an impoverished rural community in Quebec can find happiness and contentment in the Sisterhood of the Precious Blood—whether she can take final vows as Sister Julie of the Trinity before her complicated, colorful past as the daughter of an alcoholic sorceress and a sado-masochistic father (in fact, the Devil himself) can cause mischief. She does not succeed.

Another dramatization of "possession." Another sequence of ostensibly inexplicable events, culminating in the actions (here thwarted) of a Grand Exorcist. One would think that Anne Hébert, or at the very least her publishers, would be hesitant about bringing out a novel that seeks to combine "The Exorcist" and "Rosemary's Baby."… Hébert might have turned the screw a bit more and made her nuns intentionally hilarious, or she might...