RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewIf you’re looking for something to believe in, you could do worse than Timothy Egan’s particular blend of intelligence and empathy ... If this book doesn’t quite settle the question of belief for you, it will at least fortify your faith in scrupulous reporting and captivating storytelling ... Hoping to gain an audience with the pontiff, Egan drafts a letter praising Francis’ anticonsumerism and treatment of refugees. His efforts make for an absorbing subplot even if they don’t bear fruit ... a stunningly comprehensive history of both Christianity and Western Europe ... In fact, there’s so much history that the plot can sometimes feel like an excuse to get the background in, though one hardly complains; Egan is so well informed, he starts to seem like the world’s greatest tour guide. You follow along as much to hear him talk as to see the sights. It feels as if there’s nothing he hasn’t digested for the reader, and his extraordinary reliability is reminiscent of that of the monks he describes so evocatively throughout the book ... marvelous ... Reading [this book], you feel yourself in the presence of goodness — the kind you might simply have to decide to believe in.
Angela Flournoy
RaveThe New York Times Book ReviewThere is a trace of Gabriel García Márquez in this novel — and not just in the way the fantastic is matter-of-factly described in one of the subplots, which involves a persistent, malevolent ghost, called a haint. The Turner House also contains a Márquezian abundance of characters, and it puts forth the notion that each generation exerts an influence on the ones to follow, even when that influence isn’t consciously felt ... That Flournoy’s main characters are black is central to this book, and yet her treatment of that essential fact is never essentializing. Flournoy gets at the universal through the patient observation of one family’s particulars. In this assured and memorable novel, she provides the feeling of knowing a family from the inside out, as we would wish to know our own.
