Except the Lord: Novel

This novel was a sequel to PRISONER OF GRACE and is the second volume in a trilogy. The earlier book concerned Nina Woodville and her relationship with two men, Chester Nimmo and Jim Latter. Cary was dismayed somewhat that many critics saw Nimmo as "an exceptional blackguard," and wrote EXCEPT THE LORD as a means of detailing his early life to explain how he became who he was. Nimmo relates his own life story, concentrating on his childhood and young adulthood, a period of time before he knew Nina. It's a telling story of poverty and want in a farming district in Victorian England. Three events in particular define Nimmo's personality and direction: 1) His father is a country preacher with extremely narrow views of the real world; after he calculates what he believes to be the exact date of Christ's Second Coming and it doesn't happen, Nimmo loses his faith. Although he will recapture it by the end of the book, the anchorlessness he feels molds his outlook on radical political issues of the day. 2) Against his father's wishes, he attends a theatre performance of a melodrama which involves a rape and a murder; he is so profoundly moved by the power exhibited by the actors through their words (which depict not only a class struggle between rich and poor, but a battle between good and evil as well), as are many in the audience, that he immediately realizes the importance of this impact and later applies it to his own political actions. 3) When his 12-year-old sister Georgina quits her job with the grocer G. to work at the public house, likewise against her father's will, because of G.'s sexual advances (never made explicit by Cary, which makes her action even more daring and controversial), Nimmo detects a power shift within the family - another political lesson he never forgets. Knowledge of these three events makes Nimmo's character much more sympathetic and Nina's (and the critics') later harsh judgments against him more unfair. In politics Cary believed that public opinion needed to be molded which often meant honor and brutal honesty would be counterproductive (you can't just shoot people in a democracy who won't follow you, he often implied), and he made Nimmo a reflection of this belief. One may disagree with this assessment, as do Nina and especially Jim Latter, but Cary is at his best in giving him credence for what he became.