THE MIRACLE OF PELHAM BAY PARK

by Anthony Mancini ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 19, 1981

Like Francine Prose (Household Saints, p. 529), Mancini here explores what happens when ""good Catholics"" are presented with inexplicable miracles--but while Prose toyed with metaphysics, Mancini takes a far simpler approach: the martyrdom of a vulnerable child at the hands of a swarm of (mainly clerical) tormentors. It's 1941, on a lovely spring morning in Pelham Bay Park, when eleven-year-old Lucia Buonfiglio sees ""the Lady""--who instructs the girl to ""Tell all that you saw me. . . and ask them to believe."" First to hear about Lucia's miracle is the novel's narrator: crankily humorous Father Owen Fogarty, Lucia's confessor. But Lucia also blurts out the news of her Vision to terrifying Sister Mary Rachel--who responds with abuse. And when Lucia then falls into a catatonic state during Mass (bleeding from hands, feet, eyes, and side), her ordeal really begins. There's exploitative journalism by reporter Dunlop, a ""hack of easy virtue."" A cult of the miracle-hungry forms about the child. Lucia's family--bitter mother Serafina, sullen father Ettore, brash older sister Rosemary, seriously ill brother Mario--is naturally frightened, then bewildered and protective. But the chief villain here is the Church: trying to get Lucia to deny her story; determined to snuff out the cult; threatening a mental institution for Lucia--who, seeking the Lady in the park, is raped by a retarded boy. And finally, with the Church manipulating Dunlop while Lucia simply obeys her dreams, a second miracle is expected to occur at a candlelight procession: it does. . . but ends in fire and death. Mancini, author of the Minnie Santangelo mysteries, does his reliably atmospheric job with the working-class Italian neighborhood here. And his attacks on the powerful clergy (who ""make a blackbird of the Holy Ghost"") are spunkily hortatory. So, despite the tendency toward melodrama and sentimentality, this plain-spoken tale will have a strong appeal for anti-clerical Catholics and others interested in the frequent gap between true spirituality and organized religion.

Pub Date: Jan. 19, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1981

Categories: FICTION