If Greeneland is the most famous sex 'n religion territory, its next-door neighbour must surely be Mooreland. Brian Moore has staked out a very specific American-Irish, Catholic subject-matter and has rightly earned high praise. Unlike Greene, he usually makes his central, guilt-ridden character a woman, and he is more inclined than Greene to take off into the fantastic or supernatural. The idea behind Cold Heaven is neat and unsentimental. Suppose an authentic, impeccable vision of the Virgin were to appear to someone who clung to the ordinary, who dreaded piety, and was only reluctantly a Catholic. Instant conversion? Or rage and rebellion?

LRB 3 November 1983 | PDF Download