Susan Howatch’s Absolute Truths is the sixth and final novel in her Starbridge Series. This is the second time I have read the series, and it has been an very rewarding experience; I have noticed so many details and internal references that I missed the first time around.

In a nice nod to symmetry, Howatch concludes the series with the same narrator who began it: Charles Ashworth. It is 1965, and he is now bishop of Starbridge, happily (ecstatically, actually) married to Lyle, who keeps his life ordered and on track, down to the smallest details. They have two adult sons, Michael and Charley. In terms of theology, Ashworth is a traditionalist who sees his calling as defending the Church’s “absolute truths” against the cultural onslaughts of the 1960s.

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