The Good Men
A Novel of Heresy
by Charmaine Craig

List Price: $A Novel of Heresy
Pages: 480
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 1573229733
Publisher: Riverhead Books

Inspired by the historical testimony of Grazida Lizier, a young woman changed with Heresy by the Inquisition in medieval France, The Good Men is a passionate, sweeping story of human tragedy. The heresy of the Cathars, also known as the Good Men, flourished in the Languedoc in the latter 12th and early 13th centuries. Extreme dualists, the Cathars believed that while God created the soul and its spiritual domains, Satan created the body, the earth, and all matter. They conceived of Christ not as a man, but as a pure spirit, with merely the illusion of human form. Their followers led ascetic lives in anticipation of spiritual salvation. Alarmed by the rising popularity of the Cathars, Pope Innocent III launched a brutal holy war against them in 1208. By 1321, the last known Good Man had been killed. Against this backdrop, Charmaine Craig sets her story of the people of medieval Montaillou, a village in the Pyrenees.

Spanning three generations, The Good Men follows the passions of characters torn between desires for spiritual grace and fleshly pleasure, and caught between the power of the written word and the pull of the natural order: Bernard, the young Dominican Friar, who enters the monastery as an orphan and, at an early age, takes on the charge of the Inquisition; Pierre Clergue, the village priest, whose physical shortcomings, insecurities, and fierce attraction to the young Grazida lead him to betray himself and countless others; Fabrisse, Grazida's mother, who squanders her youth and desire on Pierre, never realizing they are blood relations; Arnaud, a doctor's son, whose love of Ovid and one youthful sexual encounter make him a target for the Inquisition; and Grazida herself, whose devotion to nature and thirst for knowledge lead to her undoing.

The Good Men is remarkable not only for its historically accurate feel—Craig traveled to France and extensively researched the Inquisition against the Cathars—but also for its moving dramatization of how small, and at times barely comprehensible, differences in faith that were the impetus for terrible destruction. Through beautifully drawn characters, Craig reanimates questions of religious belief and faith that are as relevant now as in the fourteenth century and, in the process, exposes human nature in all its baseness and beauty.

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1. Do you consider the forms of religious extremism found in The Good Men—the extreme asceticism practiced by the Good Christians and the violent persecution of heretics by the Catholic Church—to be in any way related or similar? What drives Bernard to become an Inquisitor? What drives the Good Christians?

2. In her deposition, Grazida Lizier says of her illicit love affair with the rector Pierre Clergue, "Because it gave me joy and him also when we made love, I did not think that with him I was sinning." What is Grazida's view of the relation between flesh and spirit? Can the presence of joy be seen as a viable way to judge the morality of human behavior?

3. What kind of man is Pierre Clergue? Why does he become a priest? Why is he attracted to the heretical beliefs of the Good Christians? In what ways does he embody the novel's central theme of the struggle between body and soul?

4. What are the main tenets of the Good Christians's theology? Is Fabrisse right when she thinks that "They hated life…. In the name of salvation, they destroyed" [p. 67]? Why does the Catholic Church fear and persecute the Good Men?

5. Why is Bernard so obsessed with punishing Pierre Clergue? To what extent are his feelings personal? To what extent are they religious? How does he feel as he regards the men "rotting slowly under his command" [p. 331]?

6. What effect does Echo have on Pierre? How is she able to make him see "God in everything living and thriving—in the roots of the trees and in the nests of the choughs"? Why does he come to believe that "the soul shimmered through the senses of the body" [p. 283]?

7. How does Arnaud's struggle with his sexuality compare with Echo's feelings about the body and pleasure? How does it compare with Pierre's struggle?

8. Does learning to read change Echo's view of the world? What role does literacy play in the novel, and what questions does it raise about how we view the world? Is Arnaud right to later regret having taught Echo to read?

9. What is the role of nature in the novel? Is it benign, infused with meaning, menacing, innocent, holy? Why is Grazida constantly drawn to the woods outside the village? What is Arnaud's relationship to the natural world?

10. In what ways does The Good Men—even though it is set in 13th- and 14th-century France—illuminate many of the emotional, sexual, religious, and social problems that plague our own times? Does its historical distance increase or diminish its relevance?

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"The Roman Catholic Church kept transcripts of these inquisitional processes, providing an intimate, almost voyeuristic window into the affairs of men and women who lived seven centuries ago. These documents continue to fascinate…they provide inspiration for an ambitious first novel, The Good Men, by Charmaine Craig."

—The New York Times Book Review

"As a writer, she's the real deal…The action takes place in Montaillou, a tiny mountain village that is falling under the influence of saintly wanderers known as the Good Men who preach that the world was created by the devil and should be despised. The narrative, which is based on historical sources, unfolds from several points of view: those of an alcoholic widow, a lustful village priest, a cobbler struggling with his homosexuality, a conflicted Inquisitor. Craig has the gift of finding complexity in simple people, and she tells their stories in fluid, shapely prose that blends mysteries both religious and erotic with the…realities of peasant life."

—Time

"I have never read so powerful an account, fictive or historical, of the Cathar rebels against the Roman Catholic Church. Craig's vision encompasses an entire culture, which was forever destroyed."

—Harold Bloom

"A rich tale of the struggle between spiritual thirst and bodily hunger… Craig deserves critical acclaim…for creating a novel that is not only highly readable, but one that forces her audience to squirm in the face of historical tragedy—and squirm we should."

—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"Craig's stunning first novel is redolent with time and place…absorbing."

—Los Angeles Times

"The Good Men is an authentic novel of heresy. The book is beautifully composed and darkly memorable…powerful."

—Harold Bloom, author of The Western Canon and Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

"Grazida Lizier is a true heroine…There is something noble about the author's full-fledged fictional re-creation of a woman who certainly deserves to be restored to history. Grazida belongs to the luminous minority of those who, absent formal education and in the darkest of ages, nevertheless insist on thinking for themselves."

—New York Newsday

"In her admirable novel, The Good Men, Charmaine Craig transports her readers to medieval France and the dark labyrinths of heresy. She offers no easy answers to the questions of faith and persecution but rather shows us passionate characters struggling with their own desires and dilemmas. This is a memorable and absorbing debut."

—Margot Livesey

"As a writer, she's the real deal…When the Inquisition descends on Montaillou, Craig credibly and creditably allots all sides—heretics, informers, even torturers—a measure of sympathy. She demonstrates powerfully that even those who escape the rack, by good luck or God's grace, can end up being broken by life in other ways."

—Time Magazine

"There is much to admire in The Good Men, especially its deft juggling of complex intersecting story lines."

—The New York Times Book Review

"In her sensual imagining of the physical as well as the inner life of Grazida Lizier, Charmaine Craig has achieved a bold resurrection from the fourteenth century. She dramatizes the personal and catastrophic consequences of the calculated application of the machinery and cold passion of bureaucratic belief, the Inquisition's attack on inquiry, the muting of a questioner's voice. Lucky for fiction, Craig's own voice is alive and well, knowing and musical."

—Geoffrey Wolff

"A fascinating story. It asks questions which are as relevant today as they were in the 14^th century. Questions of sex and relationships, of religious faith, of women's role in society all form the substance of this interesting and unusual novel."

—Edmonton Journal

"Gripping… Craig skillfully blends universal themes—piety, lust, guilt, love, shame, obedience, hate—with hard, hateful elements of history."

—Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"The struggle between the sins of the flesh and the transcendence of the spirit is the subject of this fictional account of the Inquisition…History is what makes The Good Men worth reading for its portrayal of a pivotal period in the life of southern France."

—The Philadelphia Inquirer

"[An] elegant, richly detailed historical novel…[Craig] populates her book with an epic cast of characters, all of them yearning for salvation while trying to reconcile the ‘recklessness of the flesh'…Craig's novel addresses the powerful sense of dualism that has radically influenced the development of Western culture."

—Book Magazine

"Chronicling the uncertainties and ethical crises of a village rector in early 14th-century France who struggles as much with his bodily yearnings as with his spiritual needs, this heady novel draws on depositions given during the French Inquisition to fictionalize the strange story of the Cathars, a Christian sect of medieval southern France…a believable, poignant story based on themes of religious conviction and spiritual crises. [Craig's] splendid use of imagery and fully fleshed out characters add depth to the novel, as do period details…Sharp and satisfying."

—Publishers Weekly

"Craig's remarkable debut novel, The Good Men, is an epic tale…of faith, doubt, love, betrayal, and the conflict between the flesh and the spirit."

—Coast Magazine

"Fascinating and meticulously researched."

—Booklist

"It's also a spicy page-turner."

—The Orange County Register