Elizabeth Strout’s new short story collection offers an array of poignant case studies portraying this legacy of trauma.

Moonglow may be the most entertaining, well-written and truthful memoir you've ever read.

'All Days Are Night,' by Peter Stamm

"The Book of Strange New Things: A Novel," by Michel Faber

'My Struggle' by Karl Ove Knausgaard

'We Are Not Ourselves,' by Matthew Thomas

'In the Wolf’s Mouth,' by Adam Foulds

In her 1963 essay ldquo Novelist and Believer rdquo Flannery O rsquo Connor lamented the difficulty of writing about man rsquo s encounter with God and making the experience understandable and credible to a skeptical modern audience devoid of religious feeling ldquo Today rsquo s reader rdquo

ldquo J F Powers 81 Dies Wrote about Priests rdquo So read the stark headline of this great Catholic writer rsquo s obituary in The New York Times in 1999 Powers did write about priests in most of his short stories and both of his novels including his comic masterpiece Morte d rsquo Urban

While Strout’s masterful design draws us in, it is the searing emotional specificity of her language that captures us.