The Final Beast Author:Frederick Buechner The novel centers on a dazed clergyman. His wife dead in a senseless accident, Theodore Nicolet must persevere for the sake of his two young children....The book opens with the bedraggled Nicolet, stretched taut by sorrow and puzzlement, hastening off in search of one of his parishioners, Rooney Vail, who has fled her husband, Clem, in apparent ... more »desperation at their failure to have children...Nicolet's flight is a pursuit of himself as much as a search for Rooney Vail. « less