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Article: Exiles from heaven: Ron Hansen's new novel entwines the story of Gerard Manley Hopkins and five nuns lost at sea.(Exiles: A Novel)(Book review)
- Article from:
- National Catholic Reporter
- Article date:
- August 8, 2008
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2008 National Catholic Reporter. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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EXILES: A NOVEL By Ron Hansen Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 240 pages, $23
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"Imagine it otherwise." That line from Ron Hansen's new novel Exiles is a good departure point to discuss it. That's because Exiles ultimately leaves readers wistful about the unfulfilled promise of lives tragically cut short. The aforementioned line is written about 19th-century Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, but it could have just as easily been said of the novel's other protagonists: five German Franciscan nuns who perished in 1875 when the ocean vessel the Deutschland was shipwrecked.
The historical and ...