An inviting account of one man’s ambivalence toward his own faith and occupation.
A literary novel follows a conflicted preacher.
Foy Davis, a Baptist minister who has grown up in Texas, decides in 2005 that he will no longer be a pastor. But Foy leaves his church in San Antonio under a shadow (“They didn’t fire him, but he didn’t exactly quit either”). Adding to his problems is his divorce from his wife some two days prior. He decides he will use his newfound freedom to travel to the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans. The trip provides him with a mix of emotions, although he doesn’t do anything too crazy. The reader is then taken to Foy’s past, exploring time periods like his awkward middle-school experience in Houston and a weak attempt, in his college years, to convert strangers in Wisconsin. Then there are Foy’s preaching days. With his Nerf football his constant office companion and his willingness to say “fuck” (at least in private conversations), he sports a ministering style that strikes a balance. He is not too hip to arouse suspicion but not so stale that parishioners find him boring. He is also willing to contemplate big-picture items like what it means to truly believe in God. Although scenes from his youth provide vivid glimpses of the man Foy would become, both Atkinson’s (RealLivePreacher.com, 2013, etc.) book and his protagonist are at their best when tackling subjects that cannot easily be explained away with Scripture. At one point, Foy is summoned to a hospital room where a dying church deacon admits that he doesn’t believe in “the God stuff,” saying, “God becomin’ a little baby born in a manger. That sounds like somethin’ the Mormons would make up.” This would be a tough situation for anyone, but the man pinned with defending “the God stuff” is certainly in a tight spot. It is through such portions that the reader gets true insight into the life of a holy man. Giving a weekly sermon and comforting believers in need may seem easy enough, but what is one to do when those worshippers are more complex than expected? What happens when the sermonizers have their own doubts?
An inviting account of one man’s ambivalence toward his own faith and occupation.Pub Date: March 30, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-9967535-5-5
Page Count: 182
Publisher: Material Media LLC
Review Posted Online: Oct. 24, 2017
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
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