“Eternal Light of the Crypts,” by Alan Van’t Land. Full Quiver Publishing. (Pakenham, ON, Canada, 2021). 292 pp., $16.99.
It’s been said that the past is a foreign country. Catholic readers of Alan Van’t Land’s new historical novel, however, might find it is not quite so foreign as it first appears.
In “Eternal Light of the Crypts,” Van’t Land transports the reader back in time to the late ninth century, an era marked by warring feudal lords, Viking invasions, crumbling empires — and broad cultural belief in the power of relics.
The plot of the novel centers on relics: on their veneration, transportation, discovery and, let’s be frank, their theft. The two main characters, Egilolf (a former military scout with an unnamed but heavy burden) and Aristeus (a scribe once just a few weeks shy of professing vows, now tormented by the memories of marauding Vikings), toe the line between relic-savers and grave-robbers in their quest to transport one set — or is it two? — of holy remains to their new home. Along the way they also toe the lines between saints, sinners and fools.
Van’t Land fills out this journey with a rich tapestry of side-characters, from sarcastic thieves and aged monks to scheming abbots, wandering bards and warlords of both Christian and pagan varieties. Considered as a romp through ninth-century Francia, “Eternal Light of the Crypts” certainly does not disappoint: Readers of this excellent novel can look forward to crypt-diving, mad chases over medieval rooftops and even a Viking duel. (In good adventure-story tradition, there is also a great deal of wandering through forests and foraging for acorns.)
Yet in focusing on the deeply human stories caught in this period of historical turmoil, the author also reveals to the reader a world that feels startlingly modern. These medieval characters’ worries about the fate of their fracturing society, blinkered rulers more concerned with infighting than their subjects’ wellbeing, and the future of the Church itself all ring with surprising familiarity to 21st century Catholics.
At turns humorous, suspenseful and moving, “Eternal Light of the Crypts” is a fast-paced tale that defies clear definition; this reviewer is as tempted to term it a heist novel as she is a historical one. But the beating theological heart of the story is the question of divine providence: Where is the line between coincidence and heavenly guidance? Does God truly provide his grace to suffering humanity through the bodies of his saints? And how can people who lived centuries or even millennia before us still point us through a broken world back to God?
Reichert is publications administrative coordinator at The Catholic Spirit. She can be reached at reichertm@archspm.org.
