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HUMBLE SERVANT OF TRUTH

Name: HUMBLE SERVANT OF TRUTH
Author: Margaret O'Reilly
ISBN: 978-1-947431-12-6

A NOVEL BASED ON THE LIFE OF THOMAS AQUINAS

by Margaret O'Reilly ‧ RELEASE DATE: June 1, 2018

A dry but informative examination of an eminent philosopher and theologian.

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This debut religious novel fictionalizes the life of Thomas Aquinas.

Just as Italy is becoming a hotly contested battleground between the forces of the pope and those of the Holy Roman Empire, a child is born in 1225 to the landowning Aquino family, whose castle sits on the frontier of these warring states. His mother, Theodora, names the infant after the apostle famous for doubting the risen Jesus: “But flowing through the veins of this infant was the antithesis of doubt. It was soon quite clear that he was endowed with a double portion of the spirit of truth.” Thomas’ education exposes him to ancient philosophers, while an encounter with the Dominicans, a contemporary order, spurs his religious zeal. Despite the disapproval of his mother, Thomas joins the Dominicans. He goes to Paris to continue his studies under Albert the Great, where his silent studiousness earns him the nickname “the Dumb Ox.” In the city’s tempestuous scholastic environment, Thomas begins fusing ancient and Eastern thought with Roman Catholic doctrines, a practice that causes much controversy. Despite his detractors, Thomas’ deep commitment to both reason and faith leads to groundbreaking theology, which will eventually earn him a reputation as one of the church’s greatest scholars and leave an indelible mark on Western philosophy. O’Reilly writes in a breezy but exact prose: “In Viterbo, where Pope Clement IV was living, Thomas preached and offered spiritual sustenance to the pope and the curia, as well as to the Dominicans in his charge, but late into the night he dictated the theological masterpiece, his Summa Theologiae, to several secretaries at once.” The author tells most of the story via exposition, which does not allow Thomas to emerge as a fully formed character. As a result, the book reads less like a novel than a biography. Even so, O’Reilly does an excellent job contextualizing Aquinas within the political, religious, and philosophical battles of his day, making this a pleasantly accessible work for those learning about the theologian for the first time.

A dry but informative examination of an eminent philosopher and theologian.

Pub Date: June 1, 2018

ISBN: 978-1-947431-12-6

Page Count: 176

Publisher: Barbera Foundation

Review Posted Online: June 8, 2018

Review Program: Kirkus Indie

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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SEASONS OF HER LIFE

by Fern Michaels ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1994

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A fat pancake of a novel, the author's second hardcover production tells the life story of one Ruby Blue—from an abused childhood and youth, to years as wife of a Marine, personal liberation, life in the world of industry, and her golden years in a rural retreat. Throughout the career of Ruby Blue, monster men abound. There's Papa George in their Pennsylvania home, a slasher, smacker, and wife beater, who requires that his daughters repay him, in bucks, for the cost of raising them. Then there's Ruby's husband, Andrew (met in those WW II glory days in D.C.), who is heavy on the verbal abuse and generally amoral. Ruby's lifelong friend Dixie is regularly slugged mercilessly by husband Hugo. Ruby's longtime true love, Calvin, is a gentle soul, but his wife, Eva, is as lethal as the men; fortunately for Calvin, she lacks the biceps. Ruby weathers life with Andrew at Marine bases and puts up with his callous treatment of their two children, but after Andrew admits to having gambled away their son's college money she finally decamps to New Jersey. Ruby soldiers on with Dixie, and their kitchen cookie business goes international in no time. As for the men, they'll get theirs: Papa George is Bobbittized with scalding grape jelly; the late Hugo's ashes get lost in traffic; and Ruby dumps Calvin. But Andrew sees the light. Glop. However, bear in mind the author's smashing success in paperback, including her Texas saga (5 million sold).

Pub Date: April 1, 1994

ISBN: 0-345-36774-X

Page Count: 528

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1994

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

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TREE OF SMOKE

by Denis Johnson ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2007

It’s more than coincidence that the novel features two sets of relatives whose blood ties are once removed, for the family...

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Within the current political climate, the reader might expect a new novel about the war in Vietnam to provide a metaphor for Iraq. Yet Denis Johnson has bigger whales to land in his longest and most ambitious work to date. Tree of Smoke is less concerned with any individual war than with the nature of war, and with the essence of war novels. There are echoes here of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (particularly as transformed by Francis Ford Coppola into Apocalypse Now) and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, yet Johnson’s achievement suggests that each generation gets the war—and the war novel—it deserves.

At the center of Johnson’s epic sprawl is Colonel Francis Sands, the novel’s Captain Ahab, a character of profound, obsessive complexity and contradiction. Is he visionary or madman, patriot or traitor? Dead or alive? Or, somehow, all of the above? Because the reader perceives the Colonel (as he is reverently known) through the eyes of other characters, he shimmers like a kaleidoscope of shifting impressions. His military involvement in Asia preceded Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, and he has continued to operate as a CIA agent within the shadows of Vietnam, while perhaps answering to no authority higher than his own.
From World War II through the war in Vietnam, much has changed—allegiances and alliances, public sentiment, the modes of modern warfare. Yet the Colonel hasn’t—he won’t or he can’t. Though he is plainly the novel’s pivotal figure, Johnson spends more time inside the psyche of the Colonel’s nephew, William “Skip” Sands, whose father died in action and whose enlistment extends a family tradition. He’s as naïve as the Colonel is worldly, as filled with self-doubt as his uncle is free of it, but he ultimately joins his relative in psychological operations against the enemy—whomever that may be. Eventually, he must decide whether it is possible to serve both his legendary relative and his country.
A less engaging subplot concerns half-brothers Bill and James Houston, who enter the war as teenagers to escape their dead-end lives in Arizona. Where the Sands family operates on the periphery of the war, the Houstons are deep in the muck of it. Though they are what once might have been called cannon fodder, the war gives their lives definition and a sense of mission, of destiny, that is missing back home—which will never again feel like home after Vietnam.

It’s more than coincidence that the novel features two sets of relatives whose blood ties are once removed, for the family that one chooses is ultimately more important than the family into which one happens to be born. Thus it is all the more imperative to choose wisely—and all the more difficult, given the duplicity that the war seems to require for self-preservation. As the novel obliterates all distinctions between good and evil, allies and enemies, loyalty and betrayal, it sustains the suspense of who will survive long enough to have the last word.