A blend of sermons and romantically veiled sex, spiced up with some violence, that will probably please churchgoing readers....
Bowen’s avowedly Christian debut shows a young black minister struggling in the early 1960s to balance romance, church politics, and spiritual uprightness.
Before beginning his seminary training in Atlanta, Theophilus Henry Simmons formed an unfortunate liaison with the dangerously passionate Glodean Benson, who can only be described as a clerical groupie. As the story begins, newly graduated Theophilus finds that his first ministerial assignment is at the Greater Hope Gospel United Church of Memphis, the very church Glodean’s family attends. Fortunately, he soon meets Essie Lee Lane, a cook at Pompey’s Rib Joint. She may be less educated and cultured than other women pursuing Theophilus, but Essie Lee has a sterling character and good legs, the two attributes Theophilus requires in a wife. Once they marry, Bowen doesn’t hold back on showing the minister’s happy sex life with his bride in order to remind us that the gifted preacher is also a man with strong needs. Meanwhile, although Theophilus makes references to the civil rights struggles in his sermons, most of his energy is directed toward fighting enemies within his denomination, particularly a band of sleazy ministers and bishops whose thievery and lasciviousness are rendered in great detail. The split in power within the Gospel United Church between the righteous and the evil comes to a head at the Triennial Conference, where Theophilus’s allies uncover a brothel set up in a parishioner’s funeral home specifically to service visiting ministers. As one might expect, the forces of good prevail, though it’s to Bowen’s credit that she realistically shows their victory as incomplete.
A blend of sermons and romantically veiled sex, spiced up with some violence, that will probably please churchgoing readers. Others may find the self-righteousness an annoying yawn.Pub Date: June 21, 2001
ISBN: 0-446-52799-8
Page Count: 360
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2001
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
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