Of Time and Eternity

Set in Tidewater Virginia in the early 1970s, Of Time and Eternity unfolds with artistic resonance and gripping realism. Across a period of three seasons, Farley traces the story of David Kirk (a Protestant minister), whose diary records the minister’s private thoughts and daily events that consume his days. Uppermost, Kirk’s diary records his evolving love for one of his parishioners, an artist and assistant director of a gallery in nearby Norfolk. Suzanne, lonely and attractive, has equally fallen in love with David. Soon their counseling sessions lead to her home in the quiet countryside, where their yearning for each other develops in earnest. How to reconcile the affair with his genuine love for Joan, his wife, rises constantly as a whisper in the silence of his troubled heart. Both enriching and complicating the story are David’s other commitments: to a fellow minister, who struggles with his calling in search of a more honest career; to Rheba, a black woman whose son David has pledged to help; to his congregation, whom he seeks to guide and inspire in spite of his own crisis. Hardly a “preachy” book, Of Time and Eternity is a story of high-literary quality, engaging dialogue and drama, self-discovery, and redemption at the profoundest levels of the heart.