Poignant, funny, and reflective fictional recollections of Catholic childhoods, assembled by the editors of Catholic Girls (1992). Very few of these 54 stories and poems are disappointing—an accomplishment in so large a collection. Most authors are contributors to literary magazines; some, like Louise Erdrich and Michael Dorris, are better known. The stories cover many of the expected themes: the strict injunctions against sins of the flesh, the imponderable mysteries of the Church, the legacy of guilt, and the intellectual rebellion that often resulted. For example, in David Kowalczyk's ``Sinner'' an eight-year-old boy, confused by his teacher's embarrassed explanation of violations of the Sixth Commandment, confesses to a bemused priest that he has committed adultery 87 times. ``Sin'' by John Van Kirk delineates the feelings of an adolescent fearfully confessing the sin of masturbation. Able to repent but unable to reform, he sees below him ``the burning lava flow of Hell, and he could feel himself sliding toward it.'' On the other hand, Lucille Clifton's poem ``Far Memory'' recalls ``the sisters singing/at matins, their sweet music/the voice of the universe at peace.'' In Mary Ellis's wonderful story, ``Wings,'' a sensitive nine-year-old boy composes letters to his teenage brother in Vietnam; writing about his drunken father and overwhelmed mother, he implies his pain and his love while also experiencing magical dreams of joy and salvation. ``Impurity'' by Robert Clark Young takes a boy from a sadistic nun in the first grade to a sexy lay teacher whose ``dirty little secret'' is that she's a Methodist, to the sanctimonious priest who is ultimately exposed as a con man who romanced vulnerable widows and took their money. These authors are—often despite themselves—intoxicated by the elixir of their early, enveloping Catholicism. Recovering or practicing Catholics will experience a tingle of recognition; general readers should enjoy the consistent level of craftsmanship and emotional honesty.
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1994
ISBN: 0-452-27154-1
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Plume
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1994
BOOK REVIEW
The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.
Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992
ISBN: 1400031702
Page Count: 592
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it...
Harris, creator of grand, symphonic thrillers from Fatherland (1992) to An Officer and a Spy (2014), scores with a chamber piece of a novel set in the Vatican in the days after a fictional pope dies.
Fictional, yes, but the nameless pontiff has a lot in common with our own Francis: He’s famously humble, shunning the lavish Apostolic Palace for a small apartment, and he is committed to leading a church that engages with the world and its problems. In the aftermath of his sudden death, rumors circulate about the pope’s intention to fire certain cardinals. At the center of the action is Cardinal Lomeli, Dean of the College of Cardinals, whose job it is to manage the conclave that will elect a new pope. He believes it is also his duty to uncover what the pope knew before he died because some of the cardinals in question are in the running to succeed him. “In the running” is an apt phrase because, as described by Harris, the papal conclave is the ultimate political backroom—albeit a room, the Sistine Chapel, covered with Michelangelo frescoes. Vying for the papal crown are an African cardinal whom many want to see as the first black pope, a press-savvy Canadian, an Italian arch-conservative (think Cardinal Scalia), and an Italian liberal who wants to continue the late pope’s campaign to modernize the church. The novel glories in the ancient rituals that constitute the election process while still grounding that process in the real world: the Sistine Chapel is fitted with jamming devices to thwart electronic eavesdropping, and the pressure to act quickly is increased because “rumours that the pope is dead are already trending on social media.”
An illuminating read for anyone interested in the inner workings of the Catholic Church; for prelate-fiction superfans, it is pure temptation.Pub Date: Nov. 22, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-451-49344-6
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Knopf
Review Posted Online: Sept. 6, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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