"In ten lively and wide-ranging essays, William Closson James examines various derivations of the sacred in contemporary Canadian culture. Most of the essays focus on the religious aspects of modern Canadian English fiction - for example, in essays on the fiction of Hugh MacLennan Morley Callaghan, Margaret Atwood, and Joy Kogawa. But James also explores other, non-literary events and activities in which Canadians have found something transcendent or revelatory."--BOOK JACKET.