The Octave of All Souls by Robert Eady

I don't have a lot of time to do reviews for the Catholic papers. I usually have such a deluge of material that I must cover that I seem to never get around to writing them. But I felt Robert Eady's The Octave of All Soul's deserved a special mention. I'm glad to see the Western Catholic Reporter has published my review. An excerpt:

One might not think much would happen in the life of a shy, aging spinster,
but Eady, with great tenderness and insight, shows how monumental under the
surface even seemingly circumscribed lives can be.

It is a story of unrequited love, of despair and grace, of an uneducated woman's finding a mentor in her former high school English teacher, now retired, who forms a book club that exposes her to literature.

There is a profound mystery at the core of this book that opens up the meaning of the communion of the saints in eternity. Eady is able to show this in a way that resonates to the bone.

The novel reminds me of Marilynne Robinson's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gilead in its
structure and craftsmanship. Like Eady's book, Gilead is a first-person account
via letters from an elderly pastor, who knows he is dying, to his six-year-old
son.

The Octave of All Souls can be purchased from the publisher at PO Box
315, Combermere, ON K0J 1L0 ($29.95 Cdn. which includes mailing.) Email queries
can be sent to OctaveofAllSouls@live.com.