Exiles

Soon after it set sail from Bremen in 1875, the steamship Deutschland ran aground, killing more than sixty people, including a group of five exiled nuns traveling to Missouri to begin new lives. Gerard Manley Hopkins, an Oxford intellectual-turned priest, was so moved by this story that he broke his "elected silence" to write an epic poem that would define his life and career years after his own death; for he would die young, exiled from the literary world he so loved and unpublished until his breathtaking poem is presented to the world. Filled with adventure, longing, and passion, "Exiles" is another moving and superbly written novel from acclaimed author Ron Hansen.