Cooper: The Second

Belief as upbringing, belief as social fact, belief as a species of American Christian fundamentalism: "The Second" is a work of nonreligious religious fiction that engages all the markers of religion, with belief as the core of a modern-day American Gothic in which a trinity of characters clash over the complex ideologies that shape politics, religion, and spirituality. The vibrant, French Canadian Chantelle a woman who promotes a spirituality based on principles and not traditional dogma must balance her rocky romance with an aspiring half-Jewish architect, the continuing embrace with her activism, and a connection to a New York organization run by a secretive anti-Semite. But, such a caustic entanglement creates a situation ripe for a devastating conclusion, as the religious more frequently lean toward evil over good, the novel s characters ultimately confronting their individual identities through the realization of just how hard it is to make belief believable."