Faith and Belief

The novel explores the ways in which faith and belief shape reality by tracing Thomas Hart’s and Grace Macauley’s shifting relationships with their church.

For both characters, participating in the Bethesda Chapel community influences how they see themselves and the world around them. For example, at the start of the novel, Thomas fears that studying the stars and moon and “the annihilating vastness of a comet’s orbit” will “end his tentative faith” (9). His relationship with the church is already complicated by his sexuality. He hides his true self from the Bethesda community, fearing that they will reject and condemn him for it. At the same time, he does not believe that his “sin is greater than all the other sins that pass without notice” (114). He believes that his “God is a god of reason,” but also divides himself between two worlds...