THE SIGN OF THE CROSS is a book about European Catholics. In quiet, exact language, it evokes a world of unshakable dogma and troubled devotion while remaining ironically distant from it. Beginning with the haunting description of the cathedral in the Irish provincial town where he grew up, Toibin sets off on a quest that takes him (amongst other places) to Poland with the Pope for a vast celebration of authoritarian belief, and to Croatia where the virgin appears to her visionaries and American visitors believe they can see the sun spin around. This is an unforgettable and unusual tour of a Europe at odds with much of the modern world.