Written by Lisa Gottlieb

Published by Justin Press, 2013, paperback, 361 pages.

“Beating the Bounds” charts the birth, rise and fall of the Anglo-Catholic parish of St. Osmund’s, as lived and discovered by Tabitha Yarwood. As she comes to understand the chasm that separates what St. Osmund’s was from what it is now, Tabitha starts redrawing the boundaries of her faith, probing the divisions between Anglo-Catholicism and the Church of Rome and searching for her true Catholic home. “This is an ‘impossible’ novel, in the sense that Lisa Gottlieb has managed to achieve something quite amazing. In ‘Beating the Bounds’ she takes the dullest of dull topics, the parish history, and presents it as something filled with marvels and tragedies. On one level, it is an engaging, informative account of Anglicanism in Canada as seen from the ground level across four generations in a small fictional parish in Ontario. It is rich in details and characterization, story telling and humour.On another level it is a lament for what has largely disappeared from the Anglican archipelago, namely the Anglo-Catholic world, including its glory and its failings. Lisa Gottlieb tracks the transformations and losses which throw into relief the horrible liberalization of the churches in Canada, and does so without preaching.At its deepest level, this novel is a microcosm of the human search for meaning and stability in an unstable world — the search for Christ in the midst of ‘ordinary’ lives. Gottlieb shows us ourselves, and does so with honesty, affection, irony and wit. This is the work of a very, very gifted writer.” ~ Michael D. O’Brien Author, Father Elijah