Many love C. S. Lewis because of the heartwarming world of Narnia and the logical precision of Mere Christianity. But Lewis considered his true masterpiece to be Till We Have Faces, his dark retelling of an ancient pagan myth.

The book presents the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche from the perspective of Psyche’s sister, Orual. Set in the grim city of Glome, the story is both unusual and heavy. Polytheism is normal, and suffering is everywhere. The novel is Orual’s accusation against the gods for allowing so much injustice. The story ends with her realizing her own depravity and then dying.

Though the novel was published 70 years ago, it remains relatively unknown among Lewis’s works. I see why after reading it and attending Peter Kreeft’s lectures, which have since been published as a commentary on the novel. At times the novel reads like a bizarre narrative based on an equally obscure myth.

And yet, despite the book’s eccentricities—or perhaps because of them—it speaks clearly into our modern dilemmas. The novel offers Lewis’s best answers to two questions: the problem of evil and the problem of divine hiddenness.