The Power and the Glory

Graham Greene 1940

Devastation Rating

Emotionally Ruined
literary fiction philosophical political survival

Our Take

A whisky priest running from a state that has outlawed God — too flawed to be a martyr and too haunted to stop. Greene writes the conflict between grace and failure in a Mexican jungle with uncommon moral seriousness. The ending is desolate and quietly affirming, which is the hardest combination to achieve.

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