Burned Bridges

A young missionary arrives at Lone Moose full of righteous purpose, determined to bring light to what he sees as spiritual darkness in this remote Canadian wilderness. Wesley Thompson has his Bible, his convictions, and his certainties. What he lacks is any understanding of the land or the people who have already carved out their lives there. The McPhee family, the locals, the brutal cold and isolation all resist his mission in ways he never anticipated. As weeks become months, his certainty erodes. The people he came to save seem indifferent to salvation. The woman he encounters, Sophie Carr, makes him question everything his calling demands. What begins as a story of one man's spiritual ambition becomes something quieter and sadder: a portrait of idealism meeting reality and losing, gracefully, quietly, completely. Sinclair writes with spare, unsentimental precision about the loneliness of a man who cannot go home, either literally or metaphorically.