Reflections: Mary Doria Russell's 'The Sparrow'

On Jesuit Space Missions & the Bad Religion of Bad Art

Sometimes fiction surprises me. I expect to be moved and inspired by good writing and character development. I hope to be sucked into the story; unable to put down a book until I’ve read the very last page. But it’s an added bonus, a breath of beauty, when a novel lights my own soul, makes me cry with the sheer weight of theology and depth contained bet…