SOURCE: Teleky, Richard. “The Obsessive Nature of Love.” Toronto Star (18 September 1993): J13.

In the following review of The Rest of Life, Teleky praises Gordon as the foremost American Catholic writer of her generation and “one of the finest writers of our time.”

In her latest book, a collection of three novellas called The Rest Of Life, American writer Mary Gordon continues the intense exploration of the sexual and spiritual relations between men and women that marked her extraordinary first novel, Final Payments. While The Rest Of Life places religion further in the background, spiritual matters still shape the book.

In the opening novella, “Immaculate Man,” an unnamed middle-aged narrator examines her love affair with a priest, and the future she sees for them. Father Clement, a 43-year-old virgin, has no idea what to expect of the sexuality he is suddenly discovering, while Gordon's divorced protagonist is all too...