The Dearly Beloved

The book is well written and I enjoyed reading it. As a believer, I found it frustrating to have a novel where two characters who are ministers preach their beliefs not what God instructs us in His word the Bible. James one of the ministers does not believe that the stories in the Old Testament are true. He does not think the Bible is how God speaks to us through his word. I would read their sermons and think if you just stopped preaching your own beliefs and doubts and turn to God’s word for answers you could truly help your congregation to grow in their faith and walk with God. In each character’s story, I could turn to scripture and see how God is using this in their lives. Nan refuses medical intervention to get pregnant not understanding that medical intervention could be God’s way of giving her a baby but it was not Nan’s way of thinking it should happen and this character has the strongest faith in the novel. None of the three supposedly believers in the story ever seen to turn to God in prayer or search the Bible for answers.

I wanted to scream at the character Lily can’t you see that possibly God could use your situation with Will and your determination to help him to possibly find a better answer medically for all the children in the future who might have autism. How does Charles the father so quickly lose his faith?

I did find it very true that only in working at a church can you completely not do your job and they will still pay you for months out of the goodness of their hearts. That is very true. If Charles had stopped showing up to a secular job, he would have been fired within a week or two.

It feels like it was a novel written about church and faith by an author who is not a believer and does not feel God or the Bible are really that helpful or true.

I’ll get to the heart of it: The Dearly Beloved is a beautifully written (and brilliantly thought out) narrative of how life unfolds: tragedy, friendship, discovery, relationships, parenthood, work and community. It is about faith (with a lower case f) and Faith, the spiritual belief in God. But as an aetheist, non-Christian, I found it a wonderful read about being human, and world revolving around two families, and one church, in turbulent times behind closed doors and out in the world of 1960s New York. It’s literary AND exceedingly readable, the sensory and interior details resonating long after each page. A tribute to its debut author. Can’t wait to read more by Cara Wall!

When a book comes along with an unexpected message, or two, characters so ripe to tell their stories, and one that shows me a way of life I never knew, I am left swooning. This is Cara Walls debut novel THE DEARLY BELOVED.

Chance encounters. Perhaps it is destiny. Or, could it be that faith brought them together.

Start this book with an open mind. There is so much to grasp. Male characters whose sensitivity paints an unexpected picture for the time. The mid 1960s. Two women, whose personalities sit on opposite ends of the spectrum, leave you waiting with bated breath to see if they will ever meet on the same side.

When life presents obstacles and heartache, the faith, love, and resilience of two young couples are put to the test.

A telltale sign of a great book when you have positively fallen for more than one character, have changed your mind for the positive about another, your eyes are filled with tears even before you reach the end, you enjoyed every reading moment, and you would sight unseen pre-order the authors next book.

This book helped me understand my own life and marriage and how grateful I am for all the joys and sorrows that have shaped me. I am 77 years old and still learning.

“The Dearly Beloved”, by Cara Wall, is a small, quiet gem of a novel. It’s the story of four people who come together in the 1950’s and work together to make their world a better place. Charles and James are co-ministers at New York City’s Third Presbyterian Church. They’re hired as a team in the late 1950’s to bring the church and its prosperous parishioners into a more modern world. Both men go through troubled times when they doubt the existence of God and of their calls.

Charles and James are the two leading characters in the book, though their wives – Lily and Nan – are important, too. Both couples met in college and all four come from complicated backgrounds. One, Nan, is a prickly woman who was orphaned early in life when her parents are killed in a car accident. Her loss will affect her her entire life. She is, perhaps, not the right type to be a minister’s wife as she is her own person with her own career. Charles, though, adores her and asks the minimum of her. Nan is the daughter of a liberal Southern minister who knows what she has to do to help her ministering husband. The two wives do not get along; Lily, in fact, doesn’t get along with anyone.

Wall’s book is about the two couples’ relationships and with their relationships with others in the wider community. And that wider community includes the church and society at large. Charles and James become social activists, much to the consternation of many church members who would like to see “their” ministers minister closer to home. But there are problems closer to home, too, and the four carry on as best as possible. Children are born, others die, as the times go from the 1950’s to the 2000’s.

Cara Wall’s novel moves slowly through the times as Charles, Lily, James, and Nan come to terms with their own beliefs and in their love for the others. It’s a lovely book.

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