Wallace skillfully creates the four plot lines. Each story has a central conflict between faith and doubt; within each story the faithful are tempted to disbelieve, and the doubtful are tempted to believe. With these shifting hopes and fears, Wallace orchestrates a number of miniature confrontations and climaxes within each subplot. In the last third of the novel Wallace interweaves the plot lines so that each character affects the life and fate of someone in a different plot line.

Also interwoven in the novel is the story of Bernadette of Lourdes. Wallace uses two priests (Father Hearn in Chicago and Father Ruland at Lourdes) to recount the historical facts. To them he seamlessly attaches a fictitious diary of Bernadette's later life; through the diary and several minor characters who have been custodians of it, Wallace explores the tantalizing psychological theory that Bernadette suffered from hysteria.

Wallace has no...