As soon as I started it, I could not stop reading this extraordinary little book. Now, having coming to the end, I am trying to figure out what makes it perfect.

You know the genre of the patristic Q & A? It’s kind of a Socratic dialogue in reverse. The neophyte asks leading questions; the abba expounds upon them at length. At every step it is clear who is the master and who the disciple, at every step you know who’s the boss.

You know the genre of the diary or A Pilgrim’s Progress or A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man? There, the Bright Young Thing goes through various ordeals to emerge either purified or ready to ‘forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.’ The focus is on the narrator and his growth, emerging at the end ready to go forth into the brave new world.

You know the genre of the romance? There, you meet someone who seems perfect and yet seems not indifferent to you, you delight in revealing yourself more and more, ‘my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee,’ ‘But I have calmed and quieted myself, I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content,’ ‘and she opened for him like a flower.’ Eventually comes the dark cloud, the storm, the explosion, and if you’re lucky you find yourselves even closer, if not…you don’t.

The Stranger in the Forest is all and none of these. Set in a specific time and place—Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1980s-90s—it is also likely the story of every good monastic path. The hero gets you from the first line: ‘In my mind, every one of us has at least once—or perhaps many times—mentally pictured their own funeral.’ What? you think, and then almost immediately: ‘…how those who during my life did not see my true value are now in tears. How they now finally understand who I really was, and feel miserable.’ ‘Oh, good!’ you think. ‘Finally, someone as vain as me!’

But, as this is a bishop you admire, you’re pretty sure it’s going to be more and better than that—and it is.

A lot of people who grow up Orthodox fantasize about the monastic life. At first it’s external: the sweep of the mantiia, the doffing the klobuk. Then it’s the adolescent ‘I don’t belong in this world, not really.’ For most people it stops with the first taste of sensual pleasure, or more broadly being able to do what you want when you want. Chastity and obedience? Come on.

This book shines a light on what happens when someone actually tries it. The first three days meant to be spent in solitude and silence, broken by the joy of someone offering you an orange and saying ‘let’s race.’ What you like (a ‘decent, considerate, and attentive abbot’), what you don’t (doing your own laundry, bad singing). The slightly nut cases that are the brotherhood, the occasional holy bishop. The backdrop of the war and burying one beautiful, strong, young person after another. But the most important thing, and the core and structure of the book, is the novice’s relationship with a mysterious well-traveled older man who lives alone in the forest.

Sent to the hermit by his abbot, he at first thinks this is going to be like a living Philokalia. He has always fantasized about living in a hidden hut (“find a flat stone slab, take three long steps southward, find a rock covered with moss, climb down the thick rope tied to an iron ring..). Instead it becomes a kind of boxing match, more evenly matched than he—and we—expect.

The book is actually built like a professional bout. Twelve rounds (not chapters), each with a subtitle like: ‘pain,’ ‘peace,’ ‘the body,’ ‘the journey.’ We’re never quite sure how much time elapses between each round: sometimes it seems a few days, sometimes months; at one point between two rounds, summer changes to fall; at another, the novice goes to Athens to study; at yet a third, he is ordained; at a fourth; the war ends. So it’s a few years at least. Each round begins with the novice unpacking some nuts or berries sent by the abbot (the first time, he’s stung by jealousy), the hermit (is he even a monk? only at the end we learn he is not) clinging a trip gong, and off they go. ‘God is beauty,’ our hero says early on, ‘Drop the Plato stuff, kid,’ the opponent shoots back. ‘We have the Church, it is the reality of God’s presence among us,’ tries the novice soon after. ‘Hahahahahaha,’ the opponent laughs out loud, ‘Don’t fuc…oh, sorry, I won’t swear.’ Sometimes one gets in a jab, sometimes the other throws a sucker punch.

So the hermit is no saint, at least he doesn’t seem like one—he swears, he’s frank about sex, he gets mad all the time, he says don’t be a damned fool. And yet if you’ve ever had even the tiniest glimpse of how you grow in the religious life (as how you grow in love) (because this *is* a love affair), you see immediately this is it. This *is* a primer in how (if you’re lucky) it can be. The hermit starts grilling him porcinis and fiddlehead ferns. Both become less aggressive. ‘I miss feeling shame,’ the hermit says. ‘I would love to feel true, honest embarrassment and shame again.’ Because both heroes are so frank and aren’t just sparring but fighting for real (as in, not for fun but eyes on the prize), you’re in the ring with them, flinching here, cheering there. This is the confession you always dreamed of. But can it last?

At the end…spoiler alert…the novice becomes a bishop and the hermit…no! I’m not going to give it away. All I’m going to say is: if you have ever had those conversations where you open yourself utterly and find yourself being met, if you’ve ever had a great coach or psychologist, if you’ve ever had a teenager who thinks they’re spiritually better than you (if you’ve ever been that teenager), if you have ever felt the love of another human being and wished you could capture it in writing—read this book. It’s like the dialogue of Mary and Zosimas or The Way of a Pilgrim—only it’s here and now. (Only move fast, because I’m about to buy more to give as gifts).