A scalpel-thin satire disguised as a family drama, André Gide's 1925 masterpiece dissects the holy with surgical precision. Anthime Armand-Dubois, a brilliant scientist and vocal atheist, has made the fatal error of marrying a devout Catholic. When his wife's relentless campaign to convert him collides with his own crumbling health, the family decamps to Rome where faith and hypocrisy prepare to do battle. Enter Beppo, a wily street youth whose mysterious entanglement with the decadent Baraglioul family kicks open the Vatican cellars of secret dealing and spiritual fraud that the title promises. What follows is Gide at his most viciously funny: a comedy of bad faith where everyone claims conviction while calculating their next move. The Pope himself, Leo XIII, makes an appearance as something less than divine. This is a novel about what happens when belief becomes performance and performance becomes power. For readers who delight in watching institutions unmask themselves.
