Ways of escape

At a time in modern, secular Britain when religion is seen not as the saviour but as the cause of many of society’s problems, we have become skilled not so much at turning the other cheek as turning a blind eye. Thank God (maybe literally) for writers like Michael Arditti, whose invigorating novels dare to shake us out of our complacency.

Arditti returns to the ecclesiastical territory he charted in previous works, in particular the award-winning novel Easter. As well as examining Christianity as seen through the lives of several members of the Church of England, Arditti’s nuanced cartography now extends to Islam, Judaism, and, briefly, Buddhism and Paganism — although in theological terms he keeps it traditional, with many of his characters in despair and longing for salvation.

Clement, a painter well known for his challenging, some would say shocking, religious art, believes he has reconciled his Christianity with having HIV. His adult life, however, has been coloured by the premature death of his twin. Clement’s bishop father, Edwin, lost his faith but never left the church. Clement’s sister, Susannah, always felt overshadowed by her brothers. In her search for self, she is drawn through the orthodox Lubavitch sect to her mother’s dormant Judaism.

There’s always a delicious tension in Arditti’s style between the energy which fuels his ideas, and his compassion for his characters. His writing is psychologically astute, even with peripheral characters, one of whom, ‘scenting a rival’ for her position as close friend to the newly bereaved, looked ‘piqued’. Arditti also writes with gentle humour, if not black then certainly grimy: ‘This was the man with whom he had lived for five years, only to find, while painting their anniversary portrait, that he should have been painting a group.’