God and self in the confessional novel

'God and Self in the Confessional Novel' explores the question: what happened to the theological practice of confession when it entered the modern novel?

Beginning with the premise that guilt remains a universal human concern, the book considers confession via the classic confessional texts of Augustine and Rousseau.

Employing this framework, John D. Sykes, Jr. examines Goethe's 'The Sorrows of Young Werther', Dostoevsky's 'Notes from Underground', Percy's 'Lancelot', and McEwan's 'Atonement' to investigate the evolution of confession and guilt in literature from the 18th century to the early 21st century.