Set in the early 1900s, Paul Selmer is a hero who struggles as a convert to Catholicism, a minority sect in Norway. He struggles in his unhappy marriage to love his difficult wife and accept his faults as a husband. He struggles to maintain friendships and family ties in a time of rapidly crumbling morals and the obvious devastation caused by divorce and infidelity. He struggles as a parent to raise his children in a faith he is also learning.--Publisher's description.