This fourth novel in this series unfolds in 1991 with the Greek American Jewish Covo clan settled in the New York City area and beset with ethical quandaries. Psychiatrist Nicky Covo faces a malpractice lawsuit alleging deliberate neglect of a patient who died by suicide—a charge that Nicky is almost certain is baseless. Meanwhile, his second wife, Helen, doesn’t want to face the fact that her daughter, Sarah, has terminal cancer, and Nicky’s daughter, Kayla, is dealing with schizophrenia, which derailed her career as a concert pianist, while raising her 7-year-old son, Jackie. She starts courting a man in her Hasidic congregation who seems like a straight arrow—until he proposes premarital sex to test their compatibility. Nicky’s son, Max, starts questioning his legal career while pursuing a nasty, thankless case. Nicky, Helen, Kayla, and Jackie also visit Nicky’s sister Kal, who’s now a Greek Orthodox nun known as Sister Theodora at a monastery in Greece, where she and Nicky grew up. Theodora converted after a priest sheltered her from the Nazis and Nicky miraculously survived a grenade explosion during the war. She still wrestles with guilt over her previous, insistent claim that Jackie is the second coming of Jesus, an idea that offended her family. Still, her uncanny warmth and clairvoyance make the Covos turn to her for solace: Helen asks her to pray for Sarah; Kayla seeks help for her composer’s block; Nicky, a professed atheist, confessed infidelity the previous year; and devoutly Jewish Jackie starts seeing visions of the Virgin Mary.
Berger’s yarn presents his characters with moral conundrums large and small, set in the context of deeply held religious traditions. It’s also a rich, subtle study of the varieties of religious devotion, from Talmudic legalism that tempers commandments with practical wisdom to mystical visions that feel rapturous and dangerous and prayerful communion with God. Berger explores all this via complex, flawed characters mired in real-life quagmires. He often writes with a meticulous realism that dissects behavior and motivations with clinical precision, as when Helen attempts to find solace in bourbon: “The surge of alcohol into her throat and esophagus brought about a coughing spell, and a small quantity of bourbon became airborne as droplets in Helen’s kitchen. When the coughing stopped, Helen spilled out the rest of her drink….That’s what grief does to you, she thought. It makes you selfish. It makes you reckless and thoughtless.” However, the prose also takes on a quiet lyricism in moments of plangent reflection: “The times in Kayla’s life when she had most felt prayer encompassing her, although she wouldn’t have called it such at the time, was when she performed. Beethoven, the Appassionata in particular, was nothing but a prayer to Hashem.” The Covos’ struggles are sure to resonate with anyone who’s ever had an uneasy conscience and a hopeful heart.