In a previous newsletter, I told of two Taylor Caldwell trilogies, separated as productions by a considerable period. Here is the second trilogy, as I labeled it.

Diatribes on Evil

The Listener eNet 1960 Doubleday & Co.
No One Hears But Him OR 1/15/17 1966 Doubleday & Co.
Dialogues With the Devil OR 1/15/17 1967 Doubleday & Co.

I haven't read all of TC's novels, but the predominance of those I have read are the super-long. Such as Dynasty of Death and Pillar of Iron feature the complicated plots, with allusions to malevolent – often standard-issue political or business – forces behind the scenes, that are her fortes.

No one hears but him, is entirely another matter. As a follow up to The Listener, both feature chapters in each of which Souls enter a sanctuary to speak of their views to a waiting curtain. You may select the chapters at random. The lives reviewed in each are different, but the voice of concern about America is that of TC.

It is No One Hears But Him that is on sale today by Open Road. Links below take you to sales sites.

As an example, Chapter 9, The Anointed: of The Listener reveals the consternation of an Italian immigrant. She and her husband own an elite Italian restaurant. The prelude to her turmoil, addressed to the curtain, is children: They run America, they are pampered, they get anything they want, they may be pretty but they are fat, they control their parents as a law unto themselves. This just proves, say's the protagonist Agnes, that American parents hate their children.

For a long time she had no children, but she recalls in the old country that people loved their children. She and Guiseppe had built a house for children, but they had essentially given up, when one, Joe, arrived. Agnes was 36, Guiseppe 41, and now Joe was 18.

They brought him up seriously, maybe two seriously. The problem that had brought her to the sanctuary was that Joe had decided to become a priest. His parents had so hoped for his marriage and grandchildren. To boot, he chose not to be a parish priest, but one who would go on mission far away from his parents.

Then she bemoans to The Father behind the curtain that he, a man, wouldn't know what it meant for she, Agnes, to lose her son. In tears she stands, approaches the curtain and pushes a button. At the full glory revealed she gasps, then whispers,

Your mother knew. … what it meant to be a mother like me … with an only son. … She knew what the world was like.

She leaves with the words assuring she will tell Joe to Go with God. She will finish knitting the black sweater for him to wear to the seminary.

If ever you have wondered how can the new testament be brought to bear on today, these many short stories run the gamut of all walks of life, as ordinary people get lessons on the relevance of Jesus in the '60s, the time of TC's authorship of these novels.

Comparing a little over half a century to the 2000 years that have transpired from Jesus's death on the cross, don't you think we ought to be able to transcribe these tales and people to our times.

No One Hears but Him

By Taylor Caldwell

$2.99 $17.99

EXPIRES 6/7/20

Bestseller, Fiction

New York Times bestseller

At a crossroads in their lives, twelve troubled souls seek guidance and comfort from a mysterious stranger known as the Man Who Listens...Their desperate struggles have brought them to the Sanctuary for resolution, absolution, and the answers to life’s great mysteries. Taylor Caldwell illuminates the spiritual crises of our time and brings into simple yet triumphant focus the transformative power of faith and forgiveness.

“Sermonettes in story form...A guided missal for [Caldwell’s] devotional readership.” —Kirkus Reviews

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