Vipers’ Tangle

From its bitter beginning as a hate-filled letter to an estranged wife to its harrowing, untimely conclusion, Vipers’ Tangle is an absorbing tale of pride and passion. With the remarkable subtlety combined with sudden recklessness which marks all his fiction, Mauriac reveals the mundane events, details, and personalities of the story as a series of spiritual and psychological battles against God, family, and self–as Monsieur Louis is caught betwixt the lure of sin and the sublime workings of grace. With its superb narrative arc and unflinching examination of the human heart, Vipers’ Tangle stands as one of the greatest novels–Catholic or otherwise–of all time.