'Story of discovery' shows priest's experience in spiritual counseling

(CNS photo)

Anne, a divorced 40-year-old woman who essentially remains Catholic in name only, arrives almost by happenstance one evening at the Trappist Abbey of Sts. Philip and James in "The Abbey," Jesuit Father James Martin's recently published first novel.
Three years earlier a car struck and killed Anne's only child, 13-year-old Jeremiah. She wishes she "could stop obsessing" over Jeremiah's death but certainly does not want to forget him. She is confused about how she feels and how she is "supposed to be feeling."
Anne screamed words of hatred at God when Jeremiah died. She thinks God is not "close to her."
When Anne's car breaks down at work, she phones Mark, her neighbor, to ask if he might pick her up after his work and drive her home from the repair shop where her car was towed. Mark, "an experienced carpenter, not to mention an architect," is the abbey's handyman.
When Mark arrives, however, he suddenly realizes he left his cellphone behind at the abbey. So he and Anne drive there together to retrieve it.