AFTER PURPLE

by Wendy Perriam ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 10, 1982

Again, as in Bourbon for Breakfast (1981), Perriam bumps and grinds her way through contempo-sex--with religious feeling as the dubious counterpoint. Despite her mother's disapproval, Thea always wanted to be a full-fledged Catholic: after her father deserted them, ""my second father was actually a step-dad . . . His name was God . . . and you had to be a proper baptised Catholic to claim him as your real father."" But new, divorced from stolid Adrian and living with dark, violent Leo, Thea's heavily into sex: ""Why I like coming is that it's the only moment in your life when you're really committed to something."" Furthermore, she wants Adrian back, even prays (with success) that the baby of Adrian's snotty new wife Janet will die. And so, when Thea winds up in a Catholic hospital (after an attack by jealous Leo), she ""confesses"" that she murdered Janet's baby--a phase which doesn't faze red-haired friar Ray, a Franciscan in civvies (robes are expensive to dry-clean). Thea, then, opts for religion instead of sex, taking off to Lourdes to meet Ray (shepherding a group of handicapped boys). But her new hopes soon wither: the pilgrim crowds to the shrine of St. Bernadette are ""grey, grim, dyspeptic, drudging--jostling and obstructing one another""; Ray, worn to a helpless frazzle by Thea's late-night rousings and verbal blitzes, confesses his ""dribbling little doubts,"" chucks his priesthood, becoming just a man--an impotent one at that. And, after Thea has a private vision of St. Bernadette (who commands Thea to tell the world that it wasn't the Virgin she saw at Lourdes), there's a return to London, more fury at pregnant-again Janet, and a final farewell to the purple of sin. Hamhanded humor and commentary on a porcelain subject: only for those hooked on the sex/religion interface and partial to boorish hijinks.

Pub Date: Jan. 10, 1982

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1982

Categories: FICTION