THE WORLD TO COME (Mona Fastvold, USA, 2021) 7 V
The Nicene Creed closes with “[I believe in] … the life of the world to come,” which is what gives THE WORLD TO COME its spine-tingling, seal-the-deal coda.
In 1850s rural New York, before universal leisure and when marriage was more an economic partnership than a love match, Abigail (Katherine Waterston) and Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) are Tolstoyishly unhappy in their own ways. You’d have to be pretty dense not to sense where this is going once Tallie shows up at Abigail’s childless home.
I didn’t quite feel “astonishment and joy, astonishment and joy, astonishment and joy” at THE WORLD TO COME but, a couple of epistolary implausibilities aside, it is rather good, and does enough to not become a faddish period-lesbian gimmick...