In 14th-century France, a woman from the village of Montaillou was tried for heresy by the Catholic Inquisition. By her own confession, Grazida Lizier's "joy was shared" with the wrong man: a village rector.

The Good Men, Charmaine Craig's fascinating tale of medieval torments and unrequited love, is brutally illuminating. The story concerns Pierre Clergue, a 14th-century French rector. Pierre is a small man plagued for a lifetime by his bad hip and the maddening tension between dutiful celibacy and plain old lust. In love with his brother's lover, the pregnant Marquise, Pierre takes her and her illegitimate daughter (Pierre's niece), Fabrisse, under his wing. In time, Pierre becomes the top cleric in the town of Mantaillou and abuses his position, having a number of secret affairs, one of them with Fabrisse and eventually with the latter's daughter, Grazida, who marries a Cathar.

Here is where the author's juxtaposition of fiction and history really begins to pay off by intensifying Pierre's inner conflicts. The Cathars, also known as the Good Men, are a real-life Christian sect from medieval southern France. They enter Montaillou declaring that all things mortal are creations of Satan. They preach renunciation of the flesh and, of course, women. Pierre is initially drawn to the Cathar's stated determination, but he finds, as all Cathars do, that renouncing sins of the flesh just makes such sins more tempting. Craig's use of alternate points of view creates a world rich in texture and emotional resonance, one that lends itself to meditations upon religious conviction and crises. The dense writing could be leaner on descriptive detail, which would speed up the sometimes slow character development, but otherwise, The Good Men is a fine experience. --Tom Keogh

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