Loss and Gain - the Story of a Convert
The hero of the novel is not Newman but in some sense one of his remoter followers - still it gives an insight into the emotions and human journey experienced by the Blessed himself. I read this novel when it was Book of the Month for CL here in the UK - what struck me was the simplicity with which the protagonist faces even the most difficult and confusing problems he faces, and his attention to his family and friends in a climate of attachment to ideas and "parties".
Here is Newman's own description of why he wrote the story:
"A TALE, directed against the Oxford converts to the Catholic Faith, was sent from England to the author of this Volume in the summer of 1847, when he was resident at Santa Croce in Rome. Its contents were as wantonly and preposterously fanciful, as they were injurious to those whose motives and actions it professed to represent; but a formal criticism or grave notice of it seemed to him out of place.The suitable answer lay rather in the publication of a second tale; drawn up with a stricter regard to truth and probability, and with at least some personal knowledge of Oxford, and some perception of the various aspects of the religious phenomenon, which the work in question handled so rudely and so unskilfully.
Especially was he desirous of dissipating the fog of pomposity and solemn pretence, which its writer had thrown around the personages introduced into it, by showing, as in a specimen, that those who were smitten with love of the Catholic {ix} Church, were nevertheless as able to write common-sense prose as other men.
Under these circumstances "Loss and Gain" was given to the public.
Feb. 21, 1874."
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/gain/index.html#advertisement6