Belief as upbringing, belief as social fact, belief as a species of American Christian fundamentalism: The Second is a work of nonreligious religious fiction that engages all the markers of religion, with “belief” as the core of a modern-day American Gothic in which a trinity of characters clash over the complex ideologies that shape politics, religion, and spirituality. The vibrant, French Canadian Chantelle—a woman who promotes a spirituality based on principles and not traditional dogma—must balance her rocky romance with an aspiring half-Jewish architect, the continuing embrace with her activism, and a connection to a New York organization run by a secretive anti-Semite. But, such a caustic entanglement creates a situation ripe for a devastating conclusion, as the “religious” more frequently lean toward evil over good, the novel’s characters ultimately confronting their individual identities through the realization of just how hard it is to make belief believable.

Alan J. Cooper began a career in writing after being struck by an impaired driver and incurring a severe brain injury. His articles have appeared in the Globe & Mail and he is the author of Brain Injury.