The Corner That Held Them is a story of many small lives lived both with small hopes and grand dreams. It is the story of the convent of Oby. It was founded in the 12th century by a man 10 years after he discovers his wife in bed with her lover and righteously slaughters the lover. We meet the nuns 200 years later and peer into the intimate details of their lives. We find that the location of the convent is not the most advantageous – its farm land is frequently flooded. It is in a swampy location. The prioress is the CEO of the convent, scheming to attract novices with good dowries, planning on how to maximize its income, enticing a new priest, meeting and mingling with the worldly most particularly those who can or may help the convent with its affairs, designing a magnificent spire to increase its prestige and wrangling with her fellow nuns. It is the same whoever the prioress is, whoever the nuns are. They make little economies, they make large economies, they say their offices every day, they are political and they are religious and they are domestic. They fight and bicker and quarrel like any small community. They survive the Black Death, the changing of bishops, a priest who is not a priest and mad nuns. They survive being robbed and being oppressed. There are side stories and stories that illuminate their surroundings. It is brilliantly done and a marvelously realized world.