Toward That Which is Beautiful: A Novel

(Paperback)

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On an ordinary day in June of 1964 in a small town in the Altiplano of Peru, Sister Mary Katherine (formerly known as Kate), a young American nun recently arrived in this very foreign place, walks away from her convent with no money and no destination. Desperate and afraid of her feelings for an Irish priest with whom she has been working, she spen

Reviews

2021 American Fiction Awards Finalist in Multicultural Fiction
2021 International Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Literary
2021 International Book Awards Finalist in Fiction: Romance
2021 CMA Book Awards Honorable Mention in Catholic Fiction - Escapism

"In her novel, Wernicke, a former nun who once worked in Peru, turns what could be a simple tale of forbidden romance into something far more complex. . . . A moving, emotionally resonant tale of one woman's crisis of faith."
--Kirkus Reviews

"A fascinating, unsettling rite of passage through the highlands of Bolivia and the cities of Peru, but even more so through that terra incognita of one's interior landscape. A journey toward that which is beautiful which will leave us with lifelong scars but also with a deeper, fuller sense of who we really are and of who we were always meant to be."
--Paul Mariani, award-winning poet, biographer, and critic

"Toward That Which Is Beautiful is a lyrical journey of faith and love. Wernicke's writing is graceful and heartrending. A dance to the sacredness of place and the force of surrender--a most elegant novel."
--Christine Bell, author of The Perez Family and Grievance

"Not since Bel Canto have I enjoyed a novel set in South America as much as I have Toward That Which Is Beautiful. Wernicke's beautiful prose is as enchanting as the story's mountainous landscape and the main characters' love affair. Her writing transports the reader, like a masterful prose poem. Once you start reading, you won't be able to put it down."
--Herta Feely, author of Saving Phoebe Murrow, winner of the Independent Press Award in women's fiction

"Total commitment can sometimes feel like a foreign territory, especially when it involves, as it does here, the uncertainties of a young nun from St. Louis in the highlands of Peru where even the night sky is unfamiliar. The author, a former nun herself, having spent some years in Peru, brings to the writing an intimate and authentic viewpoint. In moving Sister Mary Katherine to her desperate resolution, Wernicke sustains an inner breathlessness that poetically echoes the Altiplano."
--Allan Peterson, prize-winning poet and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, NEA fellowship recipient

"For many generations, Latin America has had celebrated writers, and Marian O'Shea Wernicke is following in this rich literary tradition. Her writing will take you, the reader, on a vicarious trip to Peru. Wernicke's novel vividly illustrates the idiosyncrasies of both the native highland people and the city dwellers, as well as the cross-cultural interaction between the American way of life of the missionaries and the Peruvians."
--Dr. Juan Rodriguez, former director of the bilingual education program at the Graduate School of Education, University of Massachusetts Lowell

Author Bio

Born and raised in an Irish Catholic family in St. Louis, Missouri, Marian OShea Wernicke is the eldest of seven children. She was a nun for eleven years and spent three years working in Lima, Peru, during that time. She is a former professor of English and creative writing at Pensacola State College and the author of a memoir about her father called Tom OShea: A Twentieth Century Man. She also coedited and contributed to an award-winning book of short fiction and memoir called Confessions: Fact or Fiction Marian is married to Michael Wernicke, and they are the parents of three adult children. After many years in Pensacola, Florida, they now live in Austin, Texas.