Exiles

by Ron Hansen

In December 1875 the steamship Deutschland left Bremen, Germany, bound for America. On board were five nuns, exiled by a ban on religious orders, bound to begin their lives anew in Missouri. Their journey would end when the Deutschland ran aground at the mouth of the Thames and all five drowned. Ron Hansen tells their harrowing story, but also that of the poet and seminarian Gerard Manly Hopkins, and how the shipwreck moved him to write a grand poem, a revelatory work read throughout the world today. Combining a thrilling tragedy at sea, with the seeming shipwreck of Hopkins's own life, "Hansen brilliantly, if soberly, weaves two interrelated story lines into a riveting novel" ( Booklist on Exiles ).

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Poetry, Catholic, Novels, Book Club, Religion

240 pages, Paperback

First published May 13, 2008

About the author

Ron Hansen is the author of two story collections, two volumes of essays, and nine novels, including most recently The Kid, as well as The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which was made into an Oscar-nominated film. His novel Atticus was a finalist for the National Book Award. He teaches at Santa Clara University.

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Superbly written and completely engaging. I am neither Catholic nor have a background in Jesuit doctrine, and have only a passing familiarity with the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins, but Hansen's portraits -- of Hopkins, the nuns who are the subject of the epic poem (included as an addendum to the book) and the parallels between the various exiles of the title -- are insightful, powerful and moving. It's also a short and accessible read, especially given that it is literary fiction of the first order. Highly recommended.

[Boots LookingLand · Rating 2 out of 5]

such a huge disappointment. it reads like turgid biography: stilted, rhythmically predictable and monotonous, and, well, just hugely boring. i love the idea (about the various layers of exile we suffer/endure), but there's no reason for it to have been so incredibly dull. i don't understand how Hansen could take someone whose inner life was so rich and poetic and spiritual and turn him into such a colorless bore. boo. i honestly don't know where the rave reviews are coming from because this book is not one fifth of the awesomeness that was Mariette in Ecstasy. maybe it's not fair to make the comparison, but i can't help it.

all that vented, there's some nice stuff in here. once the cataloging of characters is dispensed with (after about 100 pages), the story starts to form up a bit, but ultimately there are no surprises here, and no revelations. i almost wish Hansen had been more heavy-handed on the theme of exile ~ to give it at least that in more vivid color.

[Charles Lewis · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little while back I bought a series of lectures on CDs about the the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. He is most famous for his poem The Wreck of the Deutschland. My knowledge of poetry is limited but many say it's one of the greatest poems/sagas of a all time. I'm beginning to appreciate the more I study. The Wreck of the Deutschland was about an actual shipwreck off the English coast in the late 19th Century. Along with roughly 40 or 50 passengers,five German nuns, who were forced out of their native land during a time of anti-Catholic regulations, known as the Falk law. Hansens story moves back and forth between the life of Hopkins and writing his poem to the nuns onf doomed ship., His description of the ship's demise is simply chilling. It's almost as if Hansen not only intereviewed the living (he didn't; much of his information came from news accounts in the Times of London) but also the dead. It was painful to read but also incredibly moving. Hansen is a beautiful writer. This may be his best. I would say Mariette In Ecstasy comes close. BTW: The back of the text includes the entire poem.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a medium amount. I love Hopkins but have never read "The Wreck of the Deutschland" closely or spent much time with it, which is a shame, so I am thankful that this book got me thinking about his masterpiece poem!

Other than that, it wasn't terribly well written (which surprised me, because I like a lot of Hansen's other stuff) and it seemed like Hansen could have done so much more with the subject. I'm also wondering why he chose to write this as a novel, rather than nonfiction?

Anyway, I am glad I read it but I wouldn't call it a must-read by any stretch.

[Stephen Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mercy. This one will leave you beaten and breathless, all at the same time.

“Thou mastering me
God! giver of breath and bread;
World's strand, sway of the sea;
Lord of living and dead;
Thou hast bound bones & veins in me, fastened me flesh,
And after it almost unmade, what with dread,
Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.”

[Sam Strickland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hansen skillfully weaves the narratives of Hopkins, the Salzkotten nuns, and the crew of the Deutschland. The accounts of how each sister arrived in her religious vocation were especially enjoyable.

[Angele · Rating 4 out of 5]

As in an earlier novel, Mariette in Ecstasy, in Exiles Ron Hansen traces the agonies and ecstasies of a devout Catholic--in this case, the 19th-century poet and priest Gerard Manley Hopkins--illuminating the attractions of the religious life without minimizing its painful restrictions and cruel sacrifices.

Hopkins's narrative poem "The Wreck of the Deutchland"--his first lengthy experiment in "sprung rhythm," as well as one the great poems that never saw print in his lifetime--is the centerpiece of the novel.

In the poem, Hopkins contrasts his own spiritual quest with the contemporary martyrdom of five youthful German nuns in an 1875 shipwreck off the British coast. The title of the poem is ironic. The nuns were on their way to the U.S. because of anti-Catholic laws enacted by the government of Otto von Bismarck--among the many Catholic religious who fled Germany for Europe and America because Bismarck believed that Catholics were wrecking "his" Deutchland.

In the novel, Hansen contrasts a detailed account of the excruciating shipwreck and its victims with the destiny of Hopkins, who died in Dublin of typhoid in 1889 at the age of 44, feeling himself to be a failure as a poet, teacher, and priest.

But here Hansen falters; he goes so far as to imagine Hopkins's rescue and recovery from the dreary Jesuitical duties that helped to kill him, but he is unwilling to explore, except in brief references, Hopkins's homosexuality and the influence it had on his theology, work, and relationships, including that with his closest friend and literary executor, the poet Robert Bridges. (Bridges, who judged Hopkins's work to be "freakish and obscure," also censored some of his friend's early romantic poems and his letters, "[having:] conservative scruples over revealing even the most innocent intimacies in their private correspondence.")

But the puckish genius has the last laugh. In the final pages of Exiles, Hansen describes a visit paid to the 85-year-old Bridges--Britain's poet laureate, and still a man of imposing handsomeness--by Aldous Huxley and Virginia Woolf. While Huxley scans Bridges's most popular collection (the now-forgotten Testament of Beauty), Woolf asks to see Bridges's handwritten copies of Hopkins's poems, upsetting the literary lion: "[H:]e watched with gall and wormwood as the interesting author of Night and Day and To the Lighthouse marveled over the exacting vocabulary and imagery of his Oxford classmate, now forty years gone."

[Lisa · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had high hopes for this book--when I heard it was about Gerard Manley Hopkins and his return to writing with "The Wreck of the Deutschland," I was interested to see how a novelist would imagine the thought process and tensions behind such a choice. However, this book was a big disappointment for many reasons. In part, because of Hansen's dutiful research--so many details seemed placed merely to show that he'd found them through careful poring through documents. In fact, at one point, when one minor character describes the height of the highest wave ever, another character notes "the male fascination with facts," a fascination Hansen exhibits--which becomes a flaw. Every time a character, even minor, is introduced, we get a brief litany of their parents, their spot in the birth order of the family, etc.

Yet, at the same time, there's a surprising inconsistency. Hansen has Hopkins posing for a wet-plate photograph but can't seem to realize that tourists wouldn't be able to take pictures in 1875 Ireland--he tries to show off Hopkins' dry wit by having him say a town is not picturesque but "taking pictures-esque" because of the tourists. The joke falls flat, and the inaccuracy seems evident.

Plotting also seems a flaw--Hansen explores the lives lost in the wreck of the Deutschland, in particular five German nuns, but Hopkins' story, which is set up in parallel, lasts years, while their story, which occasions the poem written in the first part of the novel, lasts for only a day--but gets weaved in until the end of the novel. The final scenes seem like take-offs on Titanic, as the death of various minor characters are detailed.

And the biggest drama, the choice Hopkins makes not to write out of pride, and then his decision to write again, which seemed to occasion the novel, gets lost in the muddle of a quick biography that follows. A stronger book would have considered a shorter time span of his life and emphasized the psychology behind his decisions.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've now read six of Ron Hansen's books, and this is my second favorite, after Desperadoes. Switching from an exciting account of a shipwreck off the British coast in the 1870's and the later life of the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was inspired by the death of five nuns leaving Germany for America to escape the anti-Catholicism promulgated by Bismarck to write what is considered his greatest poem, The Wreck of the Deutschland.

Though little is known of the actual nuns' lives, Hansen creates interesting antecedents leading each of them to choose life as a nun. And while much is known about Hopkins, the path he took to becoming a Jesuit priest, forsaking his gifts as a poet for the most part, was also fraught with bias and alienation as England was still heavily influenced by its own anti-Catholicism, which included the religion being outlawed altogether for 300 years. And not only did he become a priest, but he didn't convert to Catholicism until he was at university. So in addition to the rifts it created for him socially, he also became somewhat estranged from his family, though they did communicate via letters.

The narrative is incredibly vivid, both on the ship before, during, and after the ship hit a sand bank on the Kentish Knock, which is part of the Thames Estuary, but also as Hopkins moves from assignment to assignment as a seminarian and then a priest.

Adding to the tension and terror aboard the ship is the fact that it didn't actually sink, but was pounded by a storm at sea and slowly came apart while stuck on the sand bank for a couple of days, despite their plight being known by the Royal Navy and coast guard.

All in all, an excellent book.

[booklady · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gerard (not Gerald) Manley Hopkins died on June 8th—the same day I finished this book. As I was reading the Epilogue last night and noticed he was buried on June 11th, I went back to check the actual day of his death (which I did not know) and felt a chill and thrill of communication as I realized that in concluding this book about him I was commemorating his death 123 years ago. Does this happen to you very often? It does to me!

I’m not really a fan of poetry* and I began this book with virtually no preconceived notions about Fr. Hopkins, the subject of the book, the oldest son of nine children, a Victorian English convert to Catholicism, and a Jesuit priest-poet. In truth, I thought the book was more about the poem he’d written about the five nuns aboard the SS Deutschland, the iron passenger steamship who died when it went down in 1866. I purchased the book because of the author, Ron Hansen, whose works I have read and enjoyed before.**

In fact, Exiles is a weaving between the two stories, going back and forth between the doomed women aboard a sinking ship and an overworked, misunderstood priest. Hansen’s story I believe is meant to tell us that we are all here as exiles; this is not our true Home. In some cases, however—such as these which he tells here so poignantly—that exilic existence just happens to be more obvious than it is for the rest of us.

*Gerard Manley Hopkins has written many fine works of poetry some of which are included in this book.

**This book has been sitting on my shelves for several years now. I can't say for sure what prompted me to pick it up a few days ago.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting biography of Gerard Manley Hopkins, the English Jesuit and poet. Struck by an article in the newspaper about 5 nuns lost in a shipwreck of the Deutschland, which struck a sandbar off the coast of England he begins to write a long poem on the subject, "The Wreck of the Deutschland", which has since been declared a classic of its genre and Hopkins' masterwork. The crew hadn't been able to see through bad weather and fog and miscalculated their route. The book alternates among Hopkins' life, that of each of the nuns and how they respond to the shipwreck, and how members of the crew deal with the catastrophe. Somewhat dry and pedestrian. The text of the poem was given in the back. I've always liked this poem since reading it in English lit in college years ago, so I was glad to find a book on the subject. The title "Exiles": the nuns consider themselves exiles from Heaven; also, due to a decree from Bismarck, who ruled Germany at the time--the Falk laws: they are exiles from their native land, on their way to America. In a way, you might call Hopkins an exile too.

[Tiffany · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book opened me up to the power of G. M. Hopkins and just how far a man can go with words. In his collision of two separate souls--a young nun in the last twelve hours of her life as the boat taking her to religious sinks (within swimming distance to the English shore) and a young man suffering from mania, digestive disturbances, and despair--Ron Hansen reveals to us the toll great devouring genius takes on the sensitive ones of this world.

Listen and drink this in:

"As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame"

and:

"I CAUGHT this morning morning’s minion, king-
Dom of daylight’s dauphin, dapple-dawn-drawn Falcon, in his riding
Of the rolling level underneath him steady air, and striding
High there, how he rung upon the rein of a wimpling wing
In his ecstasy! then off, off forth on swing,
As a skate’s heel sweeps smooth on a bow-bend: the hurl and gliding
Rebuffed the big wind. My heart in hiding
Stirred for a bird,—the achieve of, the mastery of the thing!”
--from "The Windhover"

Who was I before I drank in these lines? Dehydrated.

[John O'Brien · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well I generally only start and finish books I think are very good, and Ron Hansen does not disappoint. He's just such a fine writer, and there are zingers on every page. Yet, as others have noted, this is not Mariette in Ecstasy. First, it is much more biographical in style - both of poet-priest Gerard Manley Hopkins and of the five German nuns who were the subject of his poem "The Wreck of the Deutschland". As a Jesuit myself I found the description of SJ life in Britain in the 19th century to be most interesting. It also changed my view of GHM, which had been the cliche of the slender pale sensitive aesthete. Turns out he was flesh and blood, had a strong mischievous streak and a sense of humour. Nonetheless, given its title, the theme of exile was perhaps under-explored (Michael O'Brien's "Strangers and Sojourners" goes much deeper in that regard). It was difficult to catch glimpses of grace, even of the paschal kind, in the descriptions of sacrifice and of death.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an interesting story! The author did a very good job about weaving together two distinct stories and how one impacted the life of another. One of the stories involved five German sisters who were exiled to the U.S. from their country due to religious persecution. They were on their journey to America when a tragic shipwreck occurred. The second story involved a Jesuit priest who reads about their shipwreck and is so moved that he writes a poem about it. I had no idea about the religious persecution of this period in history, so that was very interesting to learn about. As a Catholic myself, I enjoyed reading about the background of the sisters and their discernment processes as well as about the life of the Jesuit priest, who was a convert to Catholicism. All of them were so faithful to their callings. The Catholic elements were woven in naturally, not as a way to convert the reader but just as matter-of-fact.

[Jonathan Schildbach · Rating 5 out of 5]

To explain the subject matter of this book makes it kind of a difficult sell: a somewhat eccentric Jesuit student is inspired to return to poetry following the deaths of five German Jesuit nuns in a shipwreck. The poet is Gerard Manley Hopkins, and the whole book is based on actual events. Much like his other historical fiction, Hansen creates believable characters, including complex inner lives, by weaving historical fact in with his imagination. He combines the drama and adventure of a shipwreck in December with the details of daily life in a religious order. It sounds like a bizarre mix, and the conclusion to the story is foregone, but Hansen draws readers in with a skill in writing that is so deft, even the description of a drowning nun is beautiful.

[Bart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I adored this book; it's a truly remarkable work. I enjoyed every page of it, wished it were longer, and was sad to see it end. It's an odd book, made up of two separate stories--the first that of five emigre German nuns en route to the US who are killed in a shipwreck and the second that of poet Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J.--that are unified only in the priest's writing of a poem about the nuns. Their stories are small but oddly heroic. And Hansen recounts them in a way that is deeply respectful and moving and yet does not fail to acknowledge the question that was constantly on my mind at least: what they're all doing with their lives in the first place. This book is a true gem.

[Ann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very moved by this work of historical fiction. It follows the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins through his career as a Jesuit priest and his writing of the poem "The Wreck of the Deutschland." His work was inspired by the story of five nuns who were exiled to Missouri from Germany and perished in a shipwreck off the coast of England. Exiles: A Novel describes the interior spiritual life of Hopkins and the nuns, and draws parallels between how they expressed their religious faith, without trivializing their beliefs. It's intellectually and emotionally affecting and left me with a powerful afterimage. I plan to read it again.

[Trina · Rating 2 out of 5]

Found this stiff, stilted, formal, with nothing to alleviate the harrowing details of the shipwreck that so impresses Gerard Manley Hopkins that he puts pen to paper and writes a poem about it despite having sworn off that sort of thing when he joined the Jesuits. Would that Ron Hansen had found equal inspiration. His novel Mariette in Ecstacy showcases his talents way better than this one. I get that there's an over-arching motif of religious exile that joins these lives together (the German nuns on their way to America, Hopkins stuck in Ireland), but it's not enough to keep me reading. After all, we know how the story ends right from the start.

[Angie Fehl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Inspired by a true story, Exhiles novelizes the tragic story of the steamship Deutschland, which set out in December of 1875, leaving its German port for the shores of America. It never reaches its destination. Onboard, among the passengers: a group of five nuns, ages ranging between 23-32, exhiled by a government ban on religious orders, with the goal of traveling to Missouri in hopes of starting up an American branch of their order: Sister Henrica, Sister Brigitta, Sister Barbara, Sister Aurea, and Sister Norbeta. Though the novel itself is quite a quick read, we still get a bit of a history on each of these women:


* Sister Henrica (previously known as Catharina): The reader / writer of the group. At only 15 years old, suffers the loss of her mother (died in childbirth). Grief develops into piousness, but she doesn't have the goal of taking vows right away. First, she takes up the mother role in the family, gets a job in a dress shop (her boss sees her as an "old soul" type). By the time of the trip to the Americas, Henrica is chosen to be Mother Superior of the new North American convent.

* Sister Brigitta: Born to tenant farmers, grew up shy and sensitive, often ill as a child. She grows into a pretty blonde-haired, blue eyed young woman. She's encouraged to find a suitor, which she tries to do but often gets bored with the process, often finding ways to slink off with a book somewhere * I feel you, girl*

*Sister Barbara: ("Barbara" comes from the Latin "wild, rough, and savage", Saint Barbara was executed by her own father!); Sister Barbara grew up the tomboy daughter of a shoemaker. She was plain of face, didn't like dolls, and was known for having wide open energy and zero filter of the mouth LOL. She also grew up a mostly friendless, lonely girl who loved the woods, was good as sports, but couldn't muster enough focus for reading. Once she was at the marrying age, her mother tried to match her with single farmers in the area (because of the life of poverty common for most at that time, Barbara's man-like strength was appreciated in the farming community), the matches never really panned out. But she parlayed her toughness into work in midwifery and as a triage nurse during the Franco Prussian War. Barbara was famous for her stoic, no-nonsense approach to life. Her tough-as-nails demeanor often got her labeled as a "harridan" among adults, but around children she often became a complete marshmallow.

*Sister Aurea (previously Josepha): We don't get to know too much about her other than she's the rebel and jokester in the group. She sends the others gasping at the announcement that she wants to check out the men's bathroom on the ship: "Wide enough to swing a goose in, but small enough the goose would object" LOL Prior to becoming Sister Aurea, little Josepha is a happy soul who loves to laugh and sees beauty in the church life, but feels guilty "having committed sins against chasity" with her first crush, Werner. The nuns saw her as "just a wild puppy that needed to be house-trained... and impossible to dislike."

*Sister Norberta (previously Johanna): Norbetta, like sister Brigitta, was also born to tenant farmers but at birth she was so small she was not expected to live long. But because she did indeed survive, her parents vowed to dedicate her life to the Catholic Church. Her mother treated her as a literal gift from God, which caused Johanna to act a bit haughty and spoiled. By the age of 21, she was 5'10, heavy-set and plain-faced. Friendless and without any suitors, her father declares, "she's become impossible." When he dies a few weeks later, Johanna blames herself.


The sisters travel without a male escort, and insist on paying extra so they may travel in 2nd class rather than steerage. They are all in wonder of the lavishness of the accommodations, even if small. The ship hits an underwater sand dune and when the crew checks the weather situation, they realize they are sailing into a developing hurricane; 130 pages in, the reader is thrust into a scene of crashing items, glass bursting, people being knocked about. The reader is then made to witness the nuns die off, one by one. Makes for a bit of tough reading, once you come to know and like the personalities of these women, more so when you remember this all was based on a true story!

There's also a bit of a secondary story incorporated into this brief novel: that of poet & Jesuit priest Gerard Manley Hopkins, who was inspired to write an ode to the steamship Deutschland running aground at the mouth of the Thames River. Gerard, based in Wales, reads the newspaper reports of the downed ship and how the recovered bodies of the nuns have been laid out for viewing in Statford. Hopkins had previously been a published poet who destroyed his work as a religious act of stepping away from vanity. But when a fellow priest suggests the story might be poem-worthy, Gerard finds himself inspired to get to work crafting his ode.

The first chapter is a little slow but once we get into the life stories of each of the nuns, and the way Hansen eases into the night of the tragedy, his classic way with words ultimately has the reader breezing through the pages of an incredible story. I admit, I didn't become fully invested until the closing chapters, but I enjoyed the journey just the same (as much as you can with this kind of story!).

Hansen includes Hopkins' ode in full at the back of this book. Personally, the rhythm / where Hopkins chooses to put the line breaks had an odd flow for me... but it's there for anyone curious.

[Jeanette · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing, considering he is an excellent writer.

There are two parallel storylines: the one about the wreck of the Deutschland is really interesting, and one about Gerard Manley Hopkins reads like a dry encyclopedia.

[Larry Kloth · Rating 5 out of 5]

In December 1875, the steamship "Deutschland" left Bremen, Germany en route to New York. Navigation problems caused by rough seas and extreme winter weather led to the ship running into a sandbar and slowly sinking on the Thames Estuary off the coast of England. Of the over 200 passengers and crew, fifty-seven did not survive, many washed into the sea, most dying from exposure on the ship. Among those lost were five German Franciscan nuns. They are the the primary exiles referred to in the title. Impacted by the German government's Faulk Laws which, as part of Germany's "Kulturkampf" with the Catholic Chuch, outlawed religious orders, the sisters were on their way to St. Louis to work in nursing at St. Boniface Hospital and in education.

The tragedy inspired English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins to write his epic poem "The Wreck of the 'Deutschland'". Hopkins was largely unknown as a poet during his lifetime. He felt a calling to write poetry, but wasn't sure it was a good match for his primary calling as a priest. He was a kind of exile too. His groundbreaking style of poetry was not appreciated during his life. He converted to Catholicism, which was not really affirmed by his family or the England of his time. He was kind of an odd duck that the Jesuits didn't quite know what to do with. After an enjoyable time in Wales, he was sent to a succession of difficult assignments, finally ending up at the slummish quarters of University College in Dublin, where he died from typhoid fever in 1889 at the age of forty-five. His life and work would have ended in total obscurity were it not for his relationship with a college pal who later became the British Poet Laureate, and who advocated for the publishing of Hopkins' poems several decades after Hopkins' death.

Ron Hansen once again proves what a fine writer of historical fiction he is. Not much is known of the lives of the sisters, but Hansen's imagination brings them to life. He obviously did his homework on ships and navigation and the details of the wreck and the heartbreakingly gruesome ways in which some of the victims died. And, of course, he knows Hopkins and his life and story very well, and successfully ties everything together.

[Vincent Hevern · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hansen's very well-received book tells the story of two exiles: the first are five Francuscan nuns who left Germany in 1875 because of the Falk Laws against Catholic religious practice and who died in the shipwreck of the ship, Deutschland, on their way to America and the second, the English Jesuit priest and poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins, who composed the extraordinary poem THE WRECK OF THE DEUTSCHLAND, never to be published in his lifetime, and whose last five years were spent in a kind of exile in Dublin, Ireland where he died in 1889 of typhus at age 44. That we now recognize Hopkins as a or, even, the major and innovative poet of the Victorian era is due to the publication of Hopkins poetry in 1918 by his dear friend, Robert Bridges, the Poet Laureate of the UK, who did not particularly like THE WRECK nor share Hopkins' religious beliefs, but did reveal him to the world. While I've read and studied THE WRECK for over a half-century, Hansen's narrative revealed how long was the unfolding fate of the Deutschland and its passengers in the relentless storm which drove it aground and took so many lives.

[Daniel E. Ritchie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hansen intertwines Gerard Manley Hopkins' early career as a serious poet, which took off with The Wreck of the Deutschland), and that historical event itself. Hansen provides a novelistic account of the shipwreck, in which five German, Franciscan nuns were drowned (Dec. 7, 1875) when their ship struck the shoals off Harwich and water slowly filled their ship. Hansen moves back and forth between the nuns' story and the life and art of Hopkins. It's an engaging, readable approach to literary biography. The book covers Hopkins' conversion to Catholicism, his Jesuit training, the "miraculous year" of 1877 (when he wrote "Pied Beauty," "The Windhover," and "God's Grandeur"), and his bouts with depression, ill health, and self doubt.

[Noel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much more than I expected. I am not a big historical fiction reader and honestly did not know much at all about the wreck of the Deutschland or Gerard Manley Hopkins, so it was interesting to learn a lot of new information. Hansen is an extremely skilled writer and I was very engrossed in the story due to his storytelling. I did find the shipwreck/nuns' story to be more interesting and not as dense as the chapters that focused on Hopkins but it was all excellent. This book was MUCH more emotional than I expected and it has left me with a lot to think about. I certainly want to read more of Hansen's work.

[Carrie]

This is a biographical novel of Gerard Manley Hopkins, focused specifically on his writing of the poem The Wreck of the Deutschland. It was more strictly "biographical" than most novels in that genre, so much so that I found it hard to engage in the Hopkins sections. The sections about the nuns and their experiences moved me a lot more. That being said, I still appreciated the parts about Hopkins. It brought me back to our visit to where we had once lived in Wales, and I liked learning a bit more about the background of some of his various poems that I love so much. I'm sorry to say, I still don't enjoy The Wreck of the Deutschland poem itself, though I can appreciate it a bit more now.

[Patrick Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of an event that triggered a resurgence of creativity for poet Gerard Manley Hopkins. wrote some of the most beautiful and innovative poetry in English of the late 19th century. The event was the sinking of the Deutschland. On board the doomed ship were five Catholic nuns exiled from Germany by Bismarck. They all drowned. The nuns were headed to St. Louis to lead the American branch of their order. It is a story of all these people, their faith, and search for God. It’s a great story bringing to life people whose lives ended far too early.

[Curmudgeon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Promising concept, incredibly dry execution. Most of it felt like a regurgitation of facts gleaned from a biography (or related primary sources); lots of names, dates, places, but little that transforms the facts of the case into a work of art. All I really got from the novel was a desire to return to the poems of Hopkins, and to seek out nonfiction works on him which would help me get a fuller understanding of his life and his thoughts. I felt sorry for the poor nuns, but seeing them transformed into a set of stereotypical archetypes in the absence of more information on their lives or fuller knowledge of their personalities does them no favors either.

[Joanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This was part biography, part historical fiction, part biography of a poem. It was unusual but beautiful. If I understoood all of it, I bet my rating would be higher because it was one of those books where I felt deep meaning rumbling beneath the text but knew I was missing much of it. But if you’re interested in Gerard Manley Hopkins, his poetry, Catholicism, or historical fiction from the late 19th century, this is worth a read.

[Paul Wilner]

Clean, burning, faithful. I found this book a tonic.

[Ian Roseen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic first full read of 2023, an incredibly affecting aspiration to holiness.