THE IMPOSTOR

A new translation of an early (1927) novel by the French author (1888—1948) of at least one masterpiece, The Diary of a Country Priest, among numerous other intense explorations of the doctrinal intricacies and psychic burdens of the Catholicism that was his lifelong theme. This novel examines the crise de conscience endured by Father Cenabre, a scholarly priest whose inexplicable loss of faith causes a “complete break with the rest of humanity”—a break that disastrously afflicts both the fellow cleric who labors to save him and the parishioners whom, in various ways, he fails or betrays. An often maddeningly discursive work that, nevertheless, accumulates great power in a devastating portrayal of a tormented soul that itself becomes a tormentor.