THE LAST CATHOLIC IN AMERICA: A Fictionalized Memoir

by John R. Powers ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 26, 1973

A lumbering attempt at satirizing a priest-ridden Catholic childhood. Powers, alias Eddie Ryan, recalls his life and hard times as a fledgling Catholic in St. Bastion's Grammar School in a lower middle-class enclave of Chicago's South Side with the condescending disdain of one who has since attained secular enlightenment. ""In Catholicism, the name of the game is pain"" -- mostly inflicted by the likes of Dynamite Diane, Cyril the Savage and Boom Boom Bernadine and other sadistic nuns who get their kicks from humiliating and terrorizing young sinners with promises of eternal damnation: ""God did not like people who chewed gum in school, talked in line, or who insisted on going to the bathroom more than five times a day."" For eight miserable years he endured this clerical browbeating, with only occasional inklings of his own gullibility. Sex was a word which did not exist; a lot of time was spent agonizing over a $1.00 theft -- was it a mortal, or just a venal sin? Despite a brief, disastrous stint as altar boy, Eddie Ryan seemed more of a rebel than a bootlicker -- at least his efforts to please God always fell short. The trauma of First Confession and the rigors of Lent will be familiar to anyone who has attended parochial school and they may elicit a few snickers from fellow sufferers. But the humor is cheap and obvious and more depressing than funny.

Pub Date: March 26, 1973

ISBN: 0829421300

Page Count: -

Publisher: Saturday Review Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION