THE DISCOVERY

A man searches for God in Wehmeyer’s Christian-inflected novel in verse.

In the year 1425, a serf feels the urge to walk away from the brickyard where he works, carrying nothing but a hickory staff, a satchel, and the clothes on his back. He travels without any particular aim, meeting people and seeing sights he doesn’t understand. What does a washerwoman mean when she tells him that “a journey is a container”? Why did a puppeteer at the crossroads compare him to one of his marionettes? He may not know the answers, but these interactions have the man asking progressively bigger questions. Eventually, he decides he must find God, which turns out to be easier said than done: “ ‘To walk toward God,’ the brewer explained, ‘you walk toward understanding and compassion.’ / ‘But I don’t understand anything!’ / ‘What you say is true,’ said the brewer, / ‘That is a good beginning.’ ” As the protagonist wanders, questions, and learns, he hopes that he’s nearing the end of his quest. Little does he know that an ending is just another beginning. Wehmeyer relates the pilgrim’s story over the course of 86 poem-length chapters, each broken into lines and stanzas: “In front of a letter writer’s shop / there was a man / reading a large book. / He asked, “What are you reading?’ / ‘A treasure book,’ was the reply. / ‘What is the treasure book named?’ / ‘The book of many books.’ ” The author cites the ancient Sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers as an inspiration for the novel’s format, and there’s certainly a meditative, self-contained quality to each chapter even as they successfully build on each other to form a larger narrative. The Christian themes aren’t subtle, precisely, but neither are they overly dogmatic in their presentation. Fans of Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet (1923) and similar works of bare-bones philosophy will be likely to enjoy Wehmeyer’s take on Christianity’s teachings.

A thin and dreamy but accessible parable of a man coming to religious awareness.