The Celebrant: A Novel by Charles Turner

In the summer of 1878 Memphis was a city of death. Yellow fever was devastating the city, driving thousands of panic-stricken inhabitants in the countryside, or up North by Mississippi steamboat. At most ports the overcrowded steamers were met by mobs armed with clubs and shotguns. They were forced to continue up and down the river, looking for a landing that wouldn't drive them away. There wasn't much hope of the fever letting up until the first frost. No one knew what caused it, and no one knew how to stop it. Every hour brought the thunderous clap of a canon--a desperate attempt on the part of some local "expert" to dispel the poisonous spores of the disease. Death stalked those who remained in Memphis. By midsummer, seventy corpses a day were being rushed by wagon to the city's outskirts for a hasty burial. Louis Schuyler, a young Episcopal priest, believed that God wanted him to leave his church in New Jersey and minister to the sick, dying, and terrified residents of this subtropical hell. THE CELEBRANT, a historical novel, is the story of Louis' response to God's call and his struggles with its fearful implications. Did God really call him to Memphis? Louis himself grappled with doubts Wasn't Wasn't there spiritual pride in Louis' determination to risk his life? And what could a young clergyman, a lover of books, music, and liturgy, do in a city that cried out for doctors and nurses? How indeed could Louis, a Christian, understand the horror that assaulted his mind and sense on the streets of Memphis? "Could faith itself fall victim?" Louis wondered