...Jesus restored to full life those who had been dismissed, discounted, and discarded by an economy too busy to notice, an economy bolstered and legitimated by religious claims made for and by “better” people.

The work is to narrate, and narrate again, the pain of the world, the injustice of society, and the prospect for relief and recovery.

One need not do more than point out the claim of Jotham that when good people default on public responsibility, kudzu-like exploitative alternatives occupy the public space.

Newman writes in an almost gnomic style with abrupt half-sentences, wistful unfinished thoughts, and frequent appeal to “threes” that he finds suggestive. The crux of his elusive work is to report on the way in which good writing must adhere to conventions of plot, structure, and genre.