The Lamb

The Lamb is a powerfully concentrated story of desire, power, and sacrifice. When Xavier Dartigelongue, en route to the seminary, encounters the tragically charismatic Jean de Mirbel and learns of his failing marriage, he decides to postpone the priesthood for the sake of “saving” these two particular sinners. His visit to the Mirbel household will immerse him in the demands of lust and the darkness of despair and his salvific mission is rapidly in danger of becoming simply a project of self-preservation. The third-to-last of Mauriac’s two dozen novels, first published in 1954, The Lamb probes the darkest corners of the human heart to produce an inventive, provocative, and deeply moving chronicle of fear and hope.