In the End:
A Memoir about Faith and a Novel about Doubt
My first book was released by Left Field Publishers in May 2024.
Cover art by painter Annie Heisey.
Part memoir, part novel, In the End offers a kaleidoscopic portrait of God as seen through the eyes of a child.
Christianity was the author’s birthright: she is the daughter of a pastor, granddaughter of missionaries, and so on for generations. In her earliest memories, God feels like a member of the family, bearing a promise of eternal life in heaven.
But as she ventures beyond the parsonage, the world complicates those simple beliefs. The God of her understanding evolves from father figure to invisible friend to painfully unrequited love—and when she attempts to fortify her faith through study, doubts only multiply.
The greatest doubt of all eventually consumes her young mind: one day we will die, and what then?
In an ambitious quest to understand both her own childhood and the nature of all existence, Karie Luidens employs a mind-bending blend of genres, with evocative prose slipping from fact to fiction in pursuit of truth. Her story wends from village life to the streets of Paris, reviving long-dead philosophers for urgent conversations along the way. Themes of gender, sexuality, embodiment, and naive white saviorism ripple beneath the surface throughout.
In the End combines the intellectual rigor of the philosophical novel Sophie’s World with the poignancy of the fictionalized memoir Blankets. Ultimately, by interrogating her Christian heritage and confronting the specter of mortality, Luidens realizes a vision that is entirely her own.
“Luidens’ prose describing her early years is ethereal and affecting—especially the moving descriptions of her father’s love, juxtaposed against her burgeoning skills for sharp analysis and introspection. She skillfully transforms her dreamy prayer-time conversations with God into the hard, academic debates that later occupied her adult mind. Luidens is also graceful in her portrayal of her frustration with traditionalist views without ever mocking her Christian peers.”
— Kirkus Reviews
(Read the full review here.)
“Contemplative and penetrating, Luidens’s debut examines her lifelong relationship with the concept of God, from her childhood as a minister’s daughter to an adult studying abroad in France. She begins with a lyrically beautiful retelling of her childhood, christened by her family’s deep belief…
“Luidens writes with a philosophical hand, gently—but passionately—rifling through the religious precepts she was taught as a youth and sifting their weight against the reality she observes in the world around her.”
— BookLife Reviews by Publishers Weekly
(Read the full review here.)
“A tender, vivid account of a childhood in faith and, ultimately, the loss of both. Luidens writes of her emotional and intellectual journey to nonbelief with an urgency that is inspiring, even in the midst of her struggle. May we all be so courageous in questioning our understanding of the world—and may we do so with such compassion for ourselves and others. Truly lovely.”
— Kate Cohen
Washington Post columnist and author of We of Little Faith
“Karie Luidens writes about losing her faith with such pathos that I, a longtime atheist, found myself rooting for God to be real just so Luidens’s character wouldn’t have to get her heart broken. Formally inventive and luminously written, In the End is a worthy addition to the canon (no pun intended) of stories about leaving the church.”
— Lauren O’Neal
Coeditor of Empty the Pews: Stories of Leaving the Church
“With In the End, Karie Luidens has lovingly crafted a tender and compelling homage to her younger self. Luidens writes beautifully, chronicling her loss of faith with a poet’s sensibility and the sensitivity we owe to our childhood selves. I’m sure I’m far from the only one who will find her narrative eminently relatable.”
— Chrissy Stroop, PhD
Senior correspondent for Religion Dispatches
“While it is appropriate to describe In the End as a klüstlerroman (an artist’s coming of age), Karie Luidens’s memoir/novel does much more than simply trace an artist’s growth. The artist, in this case, is a deeply thoughtful young person searching for clarity on the role of God in this world and in our lives. In the End thus casts a light on the beautiful path that opens from sustained inquiry. If (young) people are struggling to reconcile facile teachings of organized religion with cogent religious thought and philosophy, this book is for them. What they will find is a young artist tracking the heart’s yearning for a greater meaning for ourselves and our place in this world.”
— Jesus Montaño, PhD
Professor and scholar of literature