Book Log 2019 #17: The Cloister by James Carroll

A young priest caught out in the rain takes shelter in The Cloisters, a New York art museum that specializes in medieval art and is designed to look like, well, a cloister. While there he meets a young French woman who works at the museum, and they strike up a friendship over time. The woman's father was a scholar in France who was trying to prove that medieval scholar Peter Abelard was the author of some anonymous works sympathetic to Judaism, which put him at odds with the Nazis after they invaded France.

The book uses three timelines to examine religion, politics, and the limits they can place on intellectual pursuit. There's also a fair amount of introspection by the priest, who is trying to figure out if the religious life is for him. 

Carroll is a former Catholic priest who has written extensively on the relationship between Christianity and Judaism, and is successful at weaving that knowledge into a fictional setting. It's very much worth a read if you're into this sort of thing.