Duffels

In the hidden valleys of colonial Pennsylvania, a young woman named Tabea has taken vows that demand everything and offer almost nothing in return. Edward Eggleston's luminous collection opens with this story of the Ephrata Cloister, a community of mystical Pietists where Brother Friedsam rules with iron devotion and Sister Tabea burns with a restlessness that her faith cannot contain. These short stories sweep across the breadth of 18th and 19th century America, from cloistered religious communities to frontier settlements, from quiet farmlands to bustling towns. Eggleston possessed a rare gift: the ability to render the interior lives of ordinary people with Shakespearean depth. His characters wrestle with the same forces that consume us still, duty versus desire, community versus self, the weight of expectation against the pull of passion. This is American literature before it learned to be precious, raw and honest about what it means to live in a world that demands our compliance. The stories endure because they understand that rebellion, even failed rebellion, is a form of prayer.