"We are all sojourners in this strange world."

STRANGERS AND SOJOURNERS is the first book in a six-book series entitled CHILDREN OF THE LAST DAYS. STRANGERS AND SOJOURNERS traces the lives of the Delaneys from 1900 to the mid 1970s. The novel starts in 1900 with the child Anne Ashton arriving in Uffington, Great Britain. Her father wants to attend a seance. Anne is afraid. With this start, O'Brien portrays several generations of the Delaney family coping with the de-Christianization of Western culture. He starts in 1900 when seances were popular even though Scripture warns against them. The Delaney family, Anne from England; her future husband from Ireland, settle in Northwest Canada. They experience the impact of both world wars, observe the rise of Nazism and Communism, the rejection of our Christian heritage, and the growing rejection of Biblical morality. O'Brien skillfully describes the personality and feelings of his main characters through crisp dialog and narration. The reader can recognize the conflict between the character's personal beliefs and other people's intrusion into their private lives with political correctness on abortion, homosexuality, separation of church and state, and enforced sex-ed in grade schools.

O'Brien is a skillful writer. He deeply characterizes the people in his novels, both within and outside the Delaney family. Anne is characterized most deeply, even her private fantasies. O'Brien is especially skilled in dialog. Interesting conversations let you peer inside the characters. Fast-moving narration lets you see the story develop. Anne meets a young Canadian soldier, Peter, during WWI when she was a nurse. He was dying. She felt great compassion for him. He was shipped out one night. She doesn't know where or whether he is dead or alive. She never hears from him again, but he remains special to her all through the novel. Her husband, Stephen, is a strong, solid man, well convinced of his Catholic faith, but withdrawn and taciturn. Anne, an Anglican, with poor grounding in her faith because of her father's obsession with seances, always searched for meaning. She is articulate and frustrated with Stephen's silence: "Stephen, Stephen," she says to herself, "You cannot claim a noble silence until you first have learned to speak to me."

O'Brien builds an interesting story of the Delaneys and the Amerindian Tobac family with their daughter Sarah, who marries Anne's son Ashley. Sarah gives birth to Nathaniel, who becomes very close to Anne. Many townspeople also play important roles in the novel: Edwin Gunnalls, who becomes a friend and confidant, but, malicious gossip forces Anne to stop the friendship, Turid Gutenberg, who eventually marries Camille L'Oraison when his wife dies. Turid sends her stepson, Maurice, to college to be rid of him. Maurice will play an important role in the next two novels in the series. Jonah MacPhale and his son, Rinky. Jonah rises to wealth and eventually becomes city mayor and Anne's opponent on some important issues.

Society's dichotomy reaches into the Delaney family. Their son, Ashley, loses his faith and embraces the new, more liberal thinking. He becomes a school teacher and helps spread the new thinking to young children. Like O'Brien's other novels, STRANGERS AND SOJOURNERS is an intense, absorbing look at what might happen if we don't, each generation, remain vigilant to preserve what is good in our societies.

Reviewed by Maurice A. Williams
Posted November 29, 2003