From the Gospel According to Grief

From the Gospel According to Grief is a novella of rare precision and emotional voltage — a work that inhabits the liminal space between love and damage, memory and invention, mentorship and transgression. Set in the fog-wrapped Flemish town of Braaschaat, it follows Georges Van Mierlo, a once-distinguished Belgian lawyer returning from years of professional exile to confront the wreckage of his life. His undoing began decades earlier with the sudden death of his sixteen-year-old daughter Claire and culminated twenty years later when a gifted young associate, Saskia Vermeer, accused him of misconduct.

At the heart of the novel is a single, damning object: Claire’s annotated copy of The Waves by Virginia Woolf — a book filled with her private meditations on consciousness, desire, and becoming. In offering this to Saskia as an intellectual gift, Georges unwittingly passes her the very thing that will be interpreted as a roadmap to manipulation. Saskia’s complaint dismantles his career, but the deeper truth is more troubling: Georges had blurred emotional and intellectual boundaries with his daughter long before Saskia entered his life.

Written in luminous, restrained prose that recalls the psychological acuity of Gail Jones and the moral clarity of Colm Tóibín, From the Gospel According to Grief examines how unprocessed grief warps perception, how the past inhabits the present without permission, and how even our best intentions can carry harm across generations. The narrative moves between the past, the moment of collapse, and Georges’s present-day return — a structure that mirrors memory’s recursive, unreliable nature.

This is not a redemption story. It offers no absolution, only the quiet, devastating clarity that comes from finally seeing the shape of one’s own damage. It is literary fiction of the highest order: atmospheric, psychologically penetrating, and unsparing in its emotional honesty. It will resonate with readers of Julian Barnes, Damon Galgut, Anne Enright, and Kazuo Ishiguro — readers who seek the kind of novel that lingers not because it comforts, but because it tells the truth.

In the fog-wrapped town of Braaschaat, Georges Van Mierlo returns after years of self-imposed exile. Once a celebrated Belgian lawyer, his career collapsed when a junior associate accused him of misconduct—an accusation rooted in a gift he never should have given. Twenty years earlier, his sixteen-year-old daughter Claire had died suddenly, leaving behind a heavily annotated copy of The Waves. When Saskia Vermeer enters his professional orbit, her bearing and intellect awaken the same dangerous echo that undid him before, blurring the lines between mentorship and transgression.

From the Gospel According to Grief is a devastating exploration of how unprocessed loss warps perception, how the past bleeds into the present until boundaries dissolve. Written with the atmospheric precision of Julian Barnes and the psychological depth of Kazuo Ishiguro, it is literary fiction of the highest order—haunting, exacting, and unforgettable.

1) "What remained, he thought, now fit easily in the palm of his hand, though it took a lifetime to gather."

2) "But he had learned long ago that grief does not stay buried, nor does it linger at the graveside. It follows us from the first time there and stays with us as another layer of self."

After years of professional exile, Georges Van Mierlo returns to the Flemish town of Braaschaat carrying only an overnight bag, a lifetime of loss, and a book annotated in his dead daughter’s hand.

Once a celebrated lawyer, Georges now walks streets where memory bleeds into the present. Twenty years earlier, his daughter Claire’s sudden death left behind a copy of The Waves, filled with her private thoughts. When he later gifts the book to Saskia Vermeer, a gifted young associate whose presence unsettles him, its marginalia will be read as evidence of manipulation—and of boundaries blurred long before Saskia’s arrival.

From the Gospel According to Grief is a taut, luminous exploration of the dangerous territory between love and damage, and of how unprocessed grief can distort judgment across generations. Written with the atmospheric precision of Julian Barnes and the emotional restraint of Colm Tóibín, it is a haunting meditation on memory, exile, and the strange grace of survival without absolution.