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The Believer: Encounters with the Beginning, the End, and Our Place in the Middle
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About This Book
For Sarah Krasnostein it begins with a Mennonite choir performing on a subway platform, a fleeting moment of witness that sets her on a fascinating journey to find out why people need to believe in absolute truths and what happens when their beliefs crash into her own. Some of the people Krasnostein interviews believe in things many people do not. Ghosts. UFOs. The literal creation of the universe in six days. Some believe in things most people would like to. Dying with dignity and autonomy. Facing up to our transgressions with truthfulness. Living with integrity and compassion. By turns devastating and delighting, and captured in snapshot-vivid detail, these six profiles with a death doula, a geologist who believes the world is six thousand years old, a lecturer in neurobiology who spends his weekends ghost hunting, the fiancé of a disappeared pilot and UFO enthusiasts, a woman incarcerated for killing her husband after suffering years of domestic violence, and Mennonite families in New York will leave you convinced that the most ordinary-seeming people are often the most remarkable and that deep and abiding commonalities can be found within the greatest differences. Vivid, unconventional, entertaining, and full of wonder, Krasnostein interweaves the stories of these believers with compassion and empathy, culminating in an unforgettable tour of the human condition that cuts to the core of who we are as people, and what we're doing on this earth.
Reviews
"The profiles are fascinating—I can't imagine talking to paranormal enthusiasts for more than 10 minutes without nodding off or secretly checking my phone, but Krasnostein's portraits left me feeling melancholy all the same."
"[a] thoughtful meditation on humans' desire for certainty, security, and solace ..."
"Journalist Krasnostein...delivers an illuminating meditation on the nature of belief and the quest for meaning ..."
"In the end, though, The Believer succeeds at its goal of bridging distances, of transcending the self to comprehend the other."
"Here, in Krasnostein's evident respect for all three of these believers, we see Krasnostein's own beliefs find shape."
"It does make for some unevenness, though – not all of the characters or their narratives are as compelling or intriguing as those that really shine here; nor is Krasnostein's project of understanding able to be achieved equally across them."
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