In Stemmle’s novel, the first black pope appoints a seemingly ordinary, long-married Catholic American couple to promote a worldwide interfaith peace initiative.
This Roman Catholic what-if isn’t as somber (and long) as Morris West’s best-seller of yesteryear Shoes of the Fisherman (1963), though folks with long memories may find some parallels. One distinction: Stemmle revisits the long-married, sexually active senior couple Don and Deb from his Geezer Sex!...A Love Story (2014), here on a very different mission. In the near future, the death of a (post-Francis) pope inspires the Vatican hierarchy to announce the surprise election of the first African pontiff, former Cardinal Peter Mbuti of Nigeria. Liberal-minded churchgoers and laity activists Deb and Don impressed Mbuti during an encounter earlier in his ministry. Now, using his papal authority, earthy, unpretentious Peter—who swears and munches junk food and admits he doesn’t really know what he’s doing in this new job—summons the two Americans to Rome. There, “Pope Nobody,” as he comes to call himself, orders the two to use their knack for communication and bridge-building in an interfaith effort to unite representatives in the three great monotheistic religions—Christianity, Islam and Judaism—as part of a concerted attempt to quell the world’s ongoing wars, most of which seem to spring from religion (particularly an awful lot involve Muslim radicals). The results, building up to Vatican III, are somewhat static, via descriptions of a series of globe-trotting meetings and clerical conferences. But characters are well drawn, not just walking bundles of op-ed pieces, as they converse extensively on religious differences and how to use faith to defang the most violent fringes of radical Islam. To Stemmle’s credit, there is no fairy-tale ending or miracle-mongering finale, just a glimmer of hope. For what it’s worth, other hot-button issues such as abortion and homosexuality get left behind.
An instructional narrative keyed to those tolerant worshippers who might sport a COEXIST bumper sticker.
Pub Date: Aug. 21, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-5117-7688-2
Page Count: 344
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 19, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.
Hunter’s debut novel tracks the experiences of her family members during the Holocaust.
Sol and Nechuma Kurc, wealthy, cultured Jews in Radom, Poland, are successful shop owners; they and their grown children live a comfortable lifestyle. But that lifestyle is no protection against the onslaught of the Holocaust, which eventually scatters the members of the Kurc family among several continents. Genek, the oldest son, is exiled with his wife to a Siberian gulag. Halina, youngest of all the children, works to protect her family alongside her resistance-fighter husband. Addy, middle child, a composer and engineer before the war breaks out, leaves Europe on one of the last passenger ships, ending up thousands of miles away. Then, too, there are Mila and Felicia, Jakob and Bella, each with their own share of struggles—pain endured, horrors witnessed. Hunter conducted extensive research after learning that her grandfather (Addy in the book) survived the Holocaust. The research shows: her novel is thorough and precise in its details. It’s less precise in its language, however, which frequently relies on cliché. “You’ll get only one shot at this,” Halina thinks, enacting a plan to save her husband. “Don’t botch it.” Later, Genek, confronting a routine bit of paperwork, must decide whether or not to hide his Jewishness. “That form is a deal breaker,” he tells himself. “It’s life and death.” And: “They are low, it seems, on good fortune. And something tells him they’ll need it.” Worse than these stale phrases, though, are the moments when Hunter’s writing is entirely inadequate for the subject matter at hand. Genek, describing the gulag, calls the nearest town “a total shitscape.” This is a low point for Hunter’s writing; elsewhere in the novel, it’s stronger. Still, the characters remain flat and unknowable, while the novel itself is predictable. At this point, more than half a century’s worth of fiction and film has been inspired by the Holocaust—a weighty and imposing tradition. Hunter, it seems, hasn’t been able to break free from her dependence on it.
Too beholden to sentimentality and cliché, this novel fails to establish a uniquely realized perspective.Pub Date: Feb. 14, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-56308-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Viking
Review Posted Online: Nov. 21, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2016
BOOK TO SCREEN
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