Life Goes On

Life goes on in Harmony, the disharmonious Indiana town where Sam Gardner has his Quaker parish, but Gardner's job might not if some fundamentalist parishioners have their way. Norman Dietz reads Gardner's first-person account of controversies that include a vegetarian sausage queen, a witch hunt over biblical accounts of the virgin birth, and a troubled marriage with a wry humor that builds into bitter sarcasm then gives way to a peaceful tone as the pressures around Gardner mount then dissolve. As in previous novels, Philip Gulley raises questions about faith in modern society, but the story line about Gardner's endangered career gives this installment a harsher tone. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine