To the outside world, Reverend Nathaniel Whitfield and his family stand as godly pillars of their small-town community in Puritan New England. One disciple, Dr Arthur Lyman, discovers in the minister's words a love so captivating it transcends language. As the bond between the two men grows more and more passionate, their wives and children must contend with a tangled web of secrets, lies and judgments that threatens to destroy them in this world and the next. Set during the turbulent historical upheavals that shaped America, All the World Beside reveals the very human lives just beneath the surface of dogmatic belief.