As readers of Mark Twain criticism are aware, critical accounts of the writer and his works are often depicted as manifesting anti-religious sentiments. Harold Bush – following a small but growing trend in Twain scholarship – attempts to re-evaluate these critical “truisms” in order to argue that there is a far more spiritual and Christian emphasis to Twain's writing than critics often acknowledge. The monograph is described (in his own words) as “a sort of cultural biography of Mark Twain's religious ethos, one focusing on the positive contributions of American religion in the life and works of arguably our most famous author” (2).

The volume is organized chronologically. However, the more important organizing principle is apparent in the way the chapters are broken down according to literary and/or spiritual influences: a discussion of Twain's time in San Francisco and the influence of bohemian culture, his wife Olivia Langdon, and his pastor Joseph Twichell comprise the first half of the book.

It is near the middle of the volume, however, that Bush presents what is perhaps one of the most interesting critical insights. In chapter 4 Bush discusses the surprising relationship between literary realism and the Social Gospel of late nineteenth-century America and argues that “Social Christianity can be understood as largely a cultural and social project sharing provocative connections with literary realism” (129). This point is, indeed, provocative. Nevertheless, it is an argument that needs to be theorized with more complexity and subtlety in order for the claim to be as powerful as Bush would like.

The remainder of the volume continues to chart Twain's rise to literary fame through the attendant spiritual crises of the time. Bush ably leads the reader through Twain's relationship with the Civil War, his deployment of humor as a model of hope, and his ultimate struggle with grief towards the end of his life.

Religion – particularly in the American context – operates as the elephant in the middle of literary criticism. It is a subject of profound critical importance that is often the most difficult and intangible to account for and theorize. Harold Bush's study of Mark Twain can sometimes appear clunky and a bit overzealous in its desire to convince. Nevertheless, the sheer will to follow through on this line of questioning, alongside the study's interesting relationship with current preoccupations with the popularity of American Christian fundamentalism, deserves our attention.