Not unlike a booklength Reader’s Digest anecdote. Not that there’s anything wrong with Reader’s Digest.
The prolific Jesuit chronicler of lusty Catholic life in America weighs in on the priestly sex scandal, putting the bulk of the blame on the bishops.
Father Andrew usually casts Irish-Americans in his lead roles, but for this look at the dark side of the altar he has set his drama in a minor Illinois city settled by Volga Deutsch, those twice-removed Bavarians imported by Catherine the Great to provide technical know-how to her subjects. The story opens with the courtroom interrogation of tall, handsome, blond, broad-shouldered, slow-moving, right thinking, straightly lusty Father Herman Hugo Hoffman, Ph.D., witness to the brutal rape of an altar boy by a priest now dead of AIDS. Father Hoffman has dared to defy the archbishop and his shopful of toadies by appearing as a plaintiff’s witness. How he came to sit in the box is told in flashback, in a long trip through the journal the priest has kept since his youth. Reared on the farm in a Russian German community, Hoffman decided early on to become a priest, a decision that did not prevent a long-term relationship with beautiful red- and hot-headed, equally brilliant, and equally lusty Kathleen Quinlan: a half-orphaned girl who sought warmth with the happy, hardworking, musical Hoffman family down the road. Keeping his priestly ambitions to himself, Harman played sports, worked on the farm, got good grades, and enjoyed the sexual favors of pretty Kathleen. Much as he enjoys sex and, later, academic success, Hoffman stays fixed on the priesthood, failing to inform Kathleen until pretty much the last minute. The heartbroken girl flees for California, and Hoffman heads for the seminary, where the future rapist is among his classmates and where the self-described (far too often) bumpkin is an academic star who rubs bureaucrats the wrong way. He, of course, turns out to be a wonderful priest and excellent golfer, and justice prevails.
Not unlike a booklength Reader’s Digest anecdote. Not that there’s anything wrong with Reader’s Digest.Pub Date: April 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-765-31052-X
Page Count: 312
Publisher: Forge
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2004
These letters from some important executive Down Below, to one of the junior devils here on earth, whose job is to corrupt mortals, are witty and written in a breezy style seldom found in religious literature. The author quotes Luther, who said: "The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn." This the author does most successfully, for by presenting some of our modern and not-so-modern beliefs as emanating from the devil's headquarters, he succeeds in making his reader feel like an ass for ever having believed in such ideas. This kind of presentation gives the author a tremendous advantage over the reader, however, for the more timid reader may feel a sense of guilt after putting down this book. It is a clever book, and for the clever reader, rather than the too-earnest soul.
Pub Date: Jan. 1, 1942
ISBN: 0060652934
Page Count: 53
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 17, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1943
Hoffman (The Red Garden, 2011, etc.) births literature from tragedy: the destruction of Jerusalem's Temple, the siege of Masada and the loss of Zion.
This is a feminist tale, a story of strong, intelligent women wedded to destiny by love and sacrifice. Told in four parts, the first comes from Yael, daughter of Yosef bar Elhanan, a Sicarii Zealot assassin, rejected by her father because of her mother's death in childbirth. It is 70 CE, and the Temple is destroyed. Yael, her father, and another Sicarii assassin, Jachim ben Simon, and his family flee Jerusalem. Hoffman's research renders the ancient world real as the group treks into Judea's desert, where they encounter Essenes, search for sustenance and burn under the sun. There too Jachim and Yael begin a tragic love affair. At Masada, Yael is sent to work in the dovecote, gathering eggs and fertilizer. She meets Shirah, her daughters, and Revka, who narrates part two. Revka's husband was killed when Romans sacked their village. Later, her daughter was murdered. At Masada, caring for grandsons turned mute by tragedy, Revka worries over her scholarly son-in-law, Yoav, now consumed by vengeance. Aziza, daughter of Shirah, carries the story onward. Born out of wedlock, Aziza grew up in Moab, among the people of the blue tunic. Her passion and curse is that she was raised as a warrior by her foster father. In part four, Shirah tells of her Alexandrian youth, the cherished daughter of a consort of the high priests. Shirah is a keshaphim, a woman of amulets, spells and medicine, and a woman connected to Shechinah, the feminine aspect of God. The women are irretrievably bound to Eleazar ben Ya'ir, Masada's charismatic leader; Amram, Yael's brother; and Yoav, Aziza's companion and protector in battle. The plot is intriguingly complex, with only a single element unresolved. An enthralling tale rendered with consummate literary skill.
Pub Date: Oct. 4, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4516-1747-4
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Scribner
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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