The Heretic

by William Baer

"The Heretic is a major literary achievement, putting the author in the ranks of Mauriac, Bernanos, Greene, Waugh, and Walker Percy. Flannery O'Connor believed that all true literature is anagogic, by which she meant that the events of the story should point beyond themselves to the ultimate meaning of life, and The Heretic is both literature and anagogic. It is also the kind of novel which, once begun, cannot be put down until the reader has finished it. It also has that test of the great in that its effects linger in the mind and imagination long afterwards. Baer has wisely anchored spiritual matters in the human, all-too-human setting of the sinful heart which gives added power to the story he so artfully tells. I can't remember when I have enjoyed a new novel more."-- Ralph McInerny

Paperback

Published January 1, 2004

About the author

William Baer, a recent Guggenheim fellow, is the award-winning author of twenty-five books including New Jersey Noir; Times Square and Other Stories; One-and-Twenty Tales; Companion; The Ballad Rode into Town; Formal Salutations: New & Selected Poems; Classic American Films; and The Unfortunates (recipient of the T.S. Eliot Award). A former Fulbright in Portugal, he’s also received the Jack Nicholson Screenwriting Award and a Creative Writing Fellowship in fiction from the National Endowment for the Arts.