(1963, US - Doubleday)/"The Climate of Belief", UK)

Dedication:

For C.P.M

About the book:

Dom Lucius Trehearne is a brilliant young monk, clearly destined for a great career as a philosopher, but in whom humility and the ability to love unselfishly are totally lacking. Their absence is not perceived by the people who so greatly admire him - his aging Abbot, who loves him as a son; young Jonathan Sargent, a sensitive boy who seeks guidance and affection and is rebuffed by Lucius; and Isabella Barton, a young married woman who for a moment imagines she is in love with Lucius and turns to him at a time of crisis in her life. The character of Lucius undergoes subtle changes as he comes in contact with these people; the very fibers of his understanding become entwined with theirs, forming a prism, and as the prism turns, Lucius is transformed. "Such is the climate of belief, a prism held in the Creator's palm where each man, a crystal slant, varies in clarity and in capacity. A mosaic of men refracting light from the Light from which all being is..."

Jennifer Lash's novel is in the tradition of Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh - though it is not in any sense imitative, for Miss Lash has her own strongly individual point of view. "The Prism" is her second novel and was written when she was just twenty-two. Still in her early twenties, Miss Lash was recently married, and lives with her husband in Suffolk, England.

Press voices:

"There is in Miss Lash's writing a distinct power and originality."
Rivers Carew, Irish Times

"An exquisite piece of work revealing sensibility of a high order."
Christopher Kent, The Tablet

"It is indeed astonishing that a young woman of twenty-two should have the insight and the knowledge to write so remarkable a novel on the life of a monastery. No one could read it without being made to reflect human endeavour to respond to that love in the wilderness of this world. The issues involved are of universal Christian application....A Novel as distinguished in style as in characterization."
Church Times

"She reveals a remarkable insight into human emotions and relationships, and her character drawing has the touch of experience that belies her years."
Manchester Evening News

"There is no doubt of Miss Lash's power to write finely and handle hard themes with very great force indeed."
Punch

"That a young writer should choose a cosmic theme is almost to be expected; what surprises here is Miss Lash's insight. She can expose the imperfections, the frailties, the foolishness, what may seem to be the hypocrisies of her characters without either feeling or inspiring the revulsion that leads to cynicism. The secret is compassion, a rare virtue in youth. In its radiance the characters... have life and reality."
Times Literary Supplement

"An exceptional novel...a book of intense feeling. To have chosen a theme like this might argue pretentiousness...there is no such flaw on a forceful, fast-moving plot and a sensitive handling of a group of normally venerable human beings."
Vernon Fane, Sphere

"A work of genuine creation that defies casual classification. A change from the monotony of miserable affairs in bleak bed-sitters. A potentially important new voice."
Paul Scott, Country Life