Canadian Novelist Robertson Davies

The Canadian writer has a new novel called "The Cunning Man." It follows the life of a Toronto-based doctor during World War 2 who witnesses the death of a father at the High Altar. The Washington Post has called it "one of [the] author's most entertaining and satisfying novels." Davies, now 81, has had three successive careers -- he began as an actor, then was a journalist and newspaper publisher, and in 1981 retired as professor of the Massy college at the University of Toronto.

The Pulitzer Prize-winning writer's new book centers on Frank Bascombe, a 68-year-old man dealing with his aging body, a dying friend and his ex-wife, who has Parkinson's.

The author's What Happened to Sophie Wilder features a convert to Catholicism and another character who struggles to understand her faith. Beta talks about his Catholic upbringing, iron's place in fiction and literature's therapeutic aspects.