Crisis, candor and a teacher’s search for redemption

LIAM CALLANAN’S acclaimed first novel, “The Cloud Atlas,” was a masterful story about bombs carried by balloons over the Pacific Ocean from Japan to Alaska during World War II. It offered a wide-ranging narrative, full of mystery and intrigue, exotic locales and characters, and was set at a fascinating moment in history.

In his newest work, “All Saints,” a present-day story set at a wealthy Catholic high school in Orange County, the broad canvas he employed earlier has been reduced and the focus of his tale is concentrated on the very personal.

Though human fallibility and frailty are at the heart of the two books -- both feature priests in starring roles -- “All Saints” asks a very private question: How do you move forward in life when faced with your own failures?

Callanan introduces us to Emily Hamilton, a theology teacher in her 50s who has been married three times and teaches church history at All Saints, whose campus runs right up to the beach. Painfully aware of her own human failings, Emily tries to get her students in this affluent, all-white crowd to engage with subjects of depth.

Her tone, both in the classroom and in thoughts shared with readers, is caustic and funny. Her one-liners would make a sitcom writer proud: “I gave them all F’s for a week on ... their writing assignments -- they were atrocious, but then I’d always graded atrocity on a curve. “

Emily approaches spirituality in a pragmatic way, not so much hoping to become a saint herself -- as she sees it, it’s pretty much too late for that -- but by grabbing hold of her own flawed nature and accepting it.

Early on, Emily confesses to readers that she’s kissed one of her students, then leaves that little nugget to present us with various memories -- of her teen pregnancy, her failed love life and the physical, emotional and spiritual elements that have brought her to this moment.

What emerges is a disjointed portrait of an emotionally stunted woman who uses her mordant humor to keep others at bay even as she aches to give herself over to something -- love, God, her students.

Readers enter the world of the high school, with all its teen angst and turmoil, well-constructed by Callanan, down to the reference to “JUG,” a phrase that can be overhead today at local Catholic high schools. (As Emily explains it, “JUG was our detention; it stood for ‘Justice Under God,’ which I thought hysterical. The students didn’t bat an eye over it.”)

Students -- particularly Edgar, Paul and Cicely, who are caught in a kind of love triangle -- grapple with their budding selves, as faculty members (Emily as well as her department chair, Father Martin Dimanche) tussle with their own midlife crises. The result is that readers observe how similar these two stages of life can appear.

The desires of the soul, the impulses of the flesh and the confines of the human condition drive the novel’s story until the line dividing the saints from the sinners is blurred; the seemingly inoffensive kiss Emily mentions early on becomes a catalyst of disaster.

At this point, unfortunately, the plot turns episodic: The coyness with which Callanan reveals important information can leave readers wondering if they’ve read the clues right, and the novel’s focus becomes claustrophobic.

Still, although Emily takes actions that are beyond questionable in their morality, to Callanan’s credit, readers can’t help but extend her some empathy.

In the end, we’re left with the very real obstacle that Emily raises about following a spiritual path. “[T]here was a problem with all those saints, all of them, every last single one, and it was this: They were dead. Whereas I needed the help right now of a true, present, and pokeable friend.”

Alas, for a book that seems interested in the workings of redemption, there’s precious little to be found for this narrator. Ultimately, Emily’s story leaves us wondering what humans -- or saints, for that matter -- can do to redeem a life.

Bernadette Murphy is the author of “Zen and the Art of Knitting” and co-author of “The Tao Gals’ Guide to Real Estate.”

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All Saints

A Novel

Liam Callanan

Delacorte: 278 pp., $23