THE EVERLASTING ARMS

Again a text and thesis novel at a dead level of recognition which traces the worldly disappointments but hard won spiritual satisfactions of Gordon Prang, a Baptist minister in a poor section of a midwestern city. The possibility of his call to St. Paul's, a wealthier church, and his rejection, sharpens his insecurity which he sees reflected in his parish. His daughter's disappearance, and the conjecture that she is pregnant, has even sadder implications when they learn that she is a dope addict, but bring her through a difficult cure at home. Prang tells her story from the pulpit, and sparks a crusade against local vice jeopardizing his life as well as his reputation; the new parson at St. Paul's is killed- in his stead- and when this time he is offered the bigger church, he declines the call having found his place and filled the need of a humbler community.... Ordinary lives and essential values in plain terms- you might even say prosaic.