Atmospheric and engaging, Sheri Joseph’s remarkably assured debut explores the interior lives of two Georgia families soon to be linked by a marriage. Though Bear Me Safely Over tackles dark themes—the menace of homophobia, the splintering of families, the discordant voice of religious fundamentalism—it is at its core a hopeful portrait of the different and often elusive faces of salvation. Sidra and Curtis, two twenty-somethings who impulsively decide to make their relationship permanent, form an arch that connects their fractured families. Sidra has already lost a sister to the fatal allure of drugs, and now Curtis’s young gay stepbrother, Paul, a lonely and defiant outsider, seems to be drifting out of control. By the book’s exquisite conclusion, no character is left untouched by the challenge of having to choose between guiding and thwarting troubled souls in their precarious passage to firmer ground. Bear Me Safely Over offers up a kaleidoscopic vision of the common secrets and sorrows at the heart of a community.