'The Cloister' probes deeply into matters of faith, dogma, complicity, and forgiveness

With , James Carroll manages a balancing act that would have thwarted lesser novelists. He juggles three stories, from different eras, that each probe deeply into matters of faith, dogma, complicity, and forgiveness. The book, as its title suggests, has a great deal of religion at its center, specifically Roman Catholicism. It's a tradition that Carroll knows well, both as a historian and a former priest.