"Blameless" by Thom Lemmons at TitleTrakk

Hi all:

I have a new review posted at Title Trakk this week for "Blameless" by Thom Lemmons.

Blameless By Thom Lemmons / Random House, Inc Professor Joseph Barnes is attractive, intelligent, and successful---beloved by his students and colleagues. Despite her professional reservations, Alexis---the dean of Joe's college---can't deny her feelings for him. But when Joe's career begins to crumble, Alexis is put in a terrible position. Should she rescue him? Will it doom their relationship if she does? 304 pages, softcover from Waterbrook.

I gave it a mixed blessing as you can see from the beginning of my review:

Thom Lemmons' Blameless explores the perennial literary and existential questions of why the blameless suffer and what, if any, responsibility God has in these situations. Lemmons chooses two literary classics to survey this terrain: the Biblical book of Job and Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. This is an impressive undertaking, and Lemmons is very creative in weaving together parts of each story with his own modern-day characters, who exist in the vividly depicted world of academe. He has several good insights and deep thoughts to share with readers. Unfortunately, for this reader, Lemmons bit off more than I could chew in trying to combine these two classics.

My confusion as a reader lies with the characterization of our modern-day Job as something of an Arthur Dimmesdale. The fact is, however, that these two literary characters aren't much alike at all ...

Read the rest of the review here. Or check the book out for yourself here.

Enjoy!

hrh