Manuscript Found in Accra

In July 1099, the walled city of Jerusalem is said to have experienced religious peace and tolerance - Jews, Muslims and Christians worshipped without incident. But beyond the gates of the city, enemy crusaders sharpened their swords, readying to invade the populace and disturb the peace. The people were given a choice to either abandon the city or fight to the death. Most chose to stay.

In Manuscript Found in Accra, Paulo Coelho has written a transcription of a fictional Apocryphal Gospel (not included in any holy religious book), documenting what one prophet, a Greek named Copt, revealed to multitudes on the night before the attack that transformed peace into a war that Copt predicted "will last into an unimaginably distant future."

One wonders why the people gathered to listen to Copt? After all, the manuscript reveals that Copt worked as a shoemaker and did not belong to any one religious sect. What encouraged the inhabitants to defer from making provisions and feeding their anxiety and preoccupation in the face of death and forced exodus to stop and listen? Were the masses who hunkered down simply looking for a way to allay their fears and deepen their faith?

By choosing to leave missing pieces and unanswered questions, Coelho lends greater authenticity to the form and tenor of this novel-turned-gospel-narrative. In Coelho's literary hands, one questions the role of coincidence. Is Copt's name a coincidence or a relation to Coptic Christians? And what about the setting--the square where Pontius Pilate and the crowds condemned Jesus Christ to death? Here, Copt makes his philosophical declarations on a myriad of issues including knowledge, death, work, miracles, loyalty and the future and encourages listeners to write down his words in order to "preserve the soul of Jerusalem" as he believes that peace will one day reign in the region again.

Fitting, too, that Coelho chose not to support this novel with a traditional literary plot, outside of the introduction that briefly details the long, circuitous route the manuscript takes until discovered. Instead, Coelho's parable-like structure and historical presentation heighten the relevance of wisdom shared a thousand years ago to people in peril. Read in the context of modern society--with its wars, terror, divisiveness and decadence--Manuscript Found in Accra points up how the world has continued to be invaded by "demons of intolerance and lack of understanding" for centuries and yet, amid adversity, there still remains the hope that tenets of love and faith can endure, if consciously cultivated.

Manuscript Found in Accra by Paulo Coelho (Translated from the Portuguese by Margaret Jull Costa)

Alfred A. Knopf,  $22.00, Hardcover, 9780385349833, 208 pp

Publication Date: April 3, 2013

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This book was provided for review by Alfred A. Knopf Publishers and TLC Book Tours.

The Book of Neil

It's 2012 and Jesus Christ returns to earth, to a "fair little city," where he is completely ignored, dismissed and scoffed at as "another mentally ill street preacher." But one day on the Crystal Creek golf course, when Jesus, wearing "a grayish robe tied by a thick rope around the waist...his hair...long and swept across his shoulders with each practice swing" strikes up a conversation with Neil, a middle-aged man in familial and financial crises, things take a dramatic turn. Jesus is desperate to make his presence known. He enlists Neil's help, as He decides to seek media attention in a secular world driven and preoccupied by technology, materialism and self-indulgence. The two hatch a plan to rob a bank in order to benefit their mutually desired goals.

The hilariously flawed execution of their plan snowballs in The Book of Neil, a smart, amusing story about faith and the nature of belief in the modern world. Author Frank Turner Hollon (Blood and Circumstance, Austin and Emily) narrates Jesus' return to earth via the points-of-view of those whose lives He touches, an array of believers and doubters: Neil, suffering pre and post-robbery panic; the skeptical police chief in town; a bank teller who feels a sudden "peace come over her" during the robbery; a New York Times reporter eager to launch the story of the "Jesus-Bandit"; and even the President of the United States.

Unexpected twists and turns shape The Book of Neil. At the end, on the rapid approach to a chilling climax, the engrossing, satirical aspects of this novel suddenly emerge in a whole new light, and Hollon's literary craftsmanship leaps from mere entertainment into a much deeper, thought-provoking epiphany.

The Book of Neil  by Frank Turner Hollon

MacAdam/Cage, $20.00, Hardcover, 978159692380, 230 pp

Publication Date: November 16, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (12/11/12), click HERE.

different character’ point of view. Not only Neil, but Edwin (the police

American Ghost

A town and culture are haunted by acts of violence in American Ghost by Janis Owens (My Brother Michael, The Cracker Kitchen). Set in Hendrix--a fictional, contemporary, hardscrabble Florida Panhandle town--this perceptive, well-paced novel was inspired by true events and centers upon a notorious lynching from 1938, the result of a white shop owner who was brutally shot and killed in a robbery by a black man. Secrets and long-buried acts of racism are unearthed when Sam Lense, a Jewish, Miami graduate student in anthropology, comes to town to study and write an academic paper about the ethnic inhabitants of the region, a group of close-knit townsfolk who are distrustful of outsiders.

While doing his research, Sam falls in love with Jolie Hoyt, the humble, sheltered daughter of a protective, old-school preacher. The intensity of the young couple's three-month affair is the talk of the town. Some believe Jolie is rapt by Sam because he is a "rich Jew" while others feel that Sam is using Jolie and her connections to the "useless old lynching" for his own gain. Tensions mount and threaten the small community until Sam's work is dramatically cut short and the bond between the lovers is ultimately severed. 

The second half of the book fast-forwards twelve years. Jolie and Sam, transformed for better and worse, are reunited when a black businessman embarks upon Hendrix to reconcile his father's memory. Complex strands weave together this captivating narrative rife with historical context and characterizations that reflect the foibles of human nature.

American Ghost by Janis Owens

Scribner, $25.00, Hardcover, 97814516774637,  288 pp

Publication Date: October 9, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (10/19/12), click HERE.

Confessions of Joan the Tall

Joan Cusack Handler's adolescent self narrates short vignettes, diary-like entries, in her memoir of growing up as an Irish-American Roman Catholic in a predominantly working class neighborhood in the Bronx (NY) in the 1950s. Twelve year-old Joan is a bright, sensitive girl who believes that "Jesus counts on me to come see Him at Mass as much as possible..." Joan--self-conscious, awkward and plagued by nervous ailments--is a misfit who stands five feet eleven and a half inches tall, wears a size eleven, quadruple A shoe, and is often mistaken for being older. The journal offers Joan a safe place to purge feelings on subjects ranging from the father-son relationship between God and Jesus, sin, the Eucharist, obedience, purgatory, lying, honoring her mother and father, snitching on her siblings and her thoughts about some of the quirky nuns and kids at school. 

Young Joan has three siblings, most notably a brother who is a bully. She is fiercely devoted to her father, a devoutly religious man who works hard and likes an occasional whiskey, and her mother, who is a no-nonsense disciplinarian and tows the line on the home front. A beloved aunt, a nun, visits the family weekly and indulges in Blackberry Brandy and likes to drive past all the pretty houses in the upscale section of town, and she also expresses high hopes that Joan will someday join a religious order. This disparity of a familial culture anchored in the practice of religious faith versus the tug toward secular interests makes it hard for Joan, who wants "more than anything... (to have) a clean and pure soul," to navigate her own way in the world in this gentle, gracefully told, coming-of-age tale.

Cusack Handler's prose reverberates with evocative imagery, insight and emotion, conjuring not only the physicality, mystery and allure of the Roman Catholic faith of the 1950s, but also the authentic intensity and vacillation of adolescent feelings. The story, constructed in slice-of-life fragments and steeped in the present tense, deepens the intimacy of this well-drawn, psychologically astute narrative.

Confessions of Joan the Tall by Joan Cusack Handler

CavanKerry Press, $21.99, Trade Paper, 9781933880334,  246 pp

Publication Date: November 13, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This book was provided for review by TLC Book Tours

Never Hug a Nun

Patrick Cantwell is a good kid, however misguided. He's a seven-year-old with a conscience, growing up in the 1960s in Webster Groves, a middle-class suburb of Saint Louis. The nuns at Mary Queen of our Hearts parochial school have done a good work in Patrick - he feels guilty about playing on the train tracks (and lying about it afterward), sneaking orange soda during lent, throwing tomatoes at buses and failing to sell enough raffle tickets for church. Swept up in a quest to help his brother get a drum set, Patrick's level of mischief escalates until he gets caught up in a robbery at the neighborhood convenience store. Amid his antics, Patrick must deal with a secret crush on schoolmate Ebby Hamilton, the impending prospect of his first confession, his 39 year-old mother being pregnant again and how pretty, young Aunt Jenny, who is "almost" a nun, is having second thoughts about her choice of vocation.

Kevin Killeen's novel breathes life and nostalgia into a bygone era. You can almost smell the pomade, see the paperback James Bond novels, S&H Greenstamps, Frank Sinatra 45 records, the family's Ford Falcon and hear the cheers for The Beatles. The story follows young Patrick's life over the course of a few months, from Easter until Christmas. The book is filled with a balanced blend of humor and poignancy, structured in short chapters that are richly woven with period details and a pitch-perfect re-creation of the  Roman Catholic Church of the 1960s (the rituals, tenets and mindsets therein) and how morality and faith were once the cornerstones of American family life.

Never Hug a Nun by Kevin Killeen

Blank Slate Press, $14.99, Trade Paper, 97809850071,  182 pp

Publication Date: December 8, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Note: This book was provided for review by TLC Book Tours

The Christmas Tree

The Christmas Tree by Julie Salamon (illustrated by Jill Weber) is a compact story about trees and the deep-rooted emotional meanings they can hold in our lives. 

It is narrated by the chief gardener from Rockefeller Center in New York City and his quest to acquire the immense Norway Spruce from a convent in New Jersey. The book tells the story of Sister Anthony, an elderly nun at the Mother House, who refuses to accommodate the gardener's agenda to cut the tree down for use as the centerpiece in the annual Rockefeller Center Christmas display.  

During the process of many years of negotiations, Sister Anthony ultimately shares her back-story about how, when she was a shy, orphan girl named Anna, she was sent from New York City to live at the convent. Once there, she felt incredibly lonely, but she befriended a tiny fir tree whom she came to call, "Tree." Anna and Tree grew up together and it was through their life-long union that Anna came to love and appreciate the wonders of nature - a breadth of knowledge she generously passes on to the next generation. 

One winter, when a harsh storm threatens Tree's safety, Sister Anthony begins to have second thoughts about the tree becoming the crown jewel at the Rockefeller Center.

This is a sensitive, simply told and moving story, a perfect December read about growth, memory, love and letting go. You'll never look at a tree, or Rockefeller Center at Christmas-time, the same way.

The Christmas Tree by Julie Salamon; Jill Weber (Illustrator)
Random House, Paper, 9780375761089, 128pp.
Publication Date: October 29, 2002
To purchase this book via INDIEBOUND click HERE

This blog post was originally featured on "Reading Between the Lines" on December 5, 2010. The full post from that date can be read HERE.

Christmas in Cornwall

An Anglican convent in decline brings together a host of characters in Christmas in Cornwall, a novel that explores the implications of loss, the complexities of family and friendship and the need to feel loved.

Taking place in the English countryside from the Feast of the Epiphany to Advent, Marcia Willett (The Summer House) stitches together tender stories about the bonds between ordinary people: Jakey, a five year-old boy who believes that a real angel is keeping watch over him; Clem, his father, a young widower who comes to work at the convent after the death of his wife in order to regroup and be closer to his own mother; Dossie, Clem's mother, a widow herself and a successful caterer who has concerns for the well-being of her son and grandson and her elderly parents - along with romantic woes; Janna, an eccentric, single woman, cast adrift from a broken past, who feels she's finally found a home by working for the aging, quirky nuns. When a stranger arrives in town claiming to be writing a book about the history of the region, rumors swirl that he actually has secret designs on taking over the convent - an old, Elizabethan Manor House. Might his quest change the future for everyone?  

Willett has written a perfectly balanced ensemble piece - a gentle, moving story about faith and trusting in God's presence via the generosity of strangers, the love of friends and family and the miracle of Christmas.

Christmas in Cornwall by Marcia Willett

Thomas Dunne Books, $25.99, Hardcover, 9781250003706,  320 pp

Publication Date: October 30, 2012

To order this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

Please note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly different form) with the permission of Shelf Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (11/9/12), click HERE.

Faith

Faith by Jennifer Haigh is a novel that reads like a fictional memoir. Father Art, a respected and lauded Catholic parish priest in Boston was accused amid the pedophilia scandal in 2002. Sheila, Father Art's step-sister, is an all-knowing narrator who tells the story much like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby - by standing on the periphery of the larger story. From the outset, she spells out her intent to shed light on the facts that implicated her step-brother in the alleged abuse of an 8 year-old boy. This leads to a novel well-structured in three parts and told largely in flashbacks. Part one details how and why Art became a priest. Part two delves into the ramifications of Art's life in the priesthood and what led to the scandal. And part three unravels the story, exposing how the scandal that plagued Art rocked his life and the lives of every member of a rather old-school, Irish-Catholic family.

Jennifer Haigh embroils her characters in a moral dilemma and renders them with great sensitivity and compassion. For every flaw revealed, Haigh presents a plausible justification that ultimately exposes redeeming qualities - in everyone. Haigh's writing--the straight prose and the pivotal scenes--is beautifully nuanced, and she made me care and feel for these people . . . Art, a truly faith-filled, yet isolated, man, who gave 25 years of his life to his church only to have that church betray him; Sheila, unwavering in her belief in her step-brother's innocence, but not without regret and sorrow; Mike, who convicts his step-brother from the get-go but who goes to great lengths to ultimately form his own conclusion; and the now elderly matriarch and patriarch of the family, who are steeped in denial - perhaps with good reason.

These characterizations, coupled with a plot that is hinged on discoveries and epiphanies that culminate toward the end of the narrative, ultimately deliver a suspenseful book that is fascinating in both its presentation and portrayal.

Faith by Jennifer Haigh
Harper, Hardcover, 9780060755805, 336pp.
Publication Date: May 2011
To purchase this book via INDIEBOUND link HERE

In order to write this review, I received a copy of this book via TLC Book Tours in conjuction with HarperCollins Publishers.

Vestments

James "Jim" Dressler is a kind, gentle 20-something young man who shoots hoops and plays poker with his buddies, likes to hang out in bars and have a few drinks, and has a weakness for women, which often makes him unable to quell his sensual urges. He is also a Roman Catholic Priest. Therein lies the moral conflict imbued in VESTMENTS, a beautifully-rendered debut novel from John Reimringer.

Modern-day Catholics and the contemporary Catholic family are Reimringer's focus, and he knows the landscape very well. There is Jim, the priest, who was drawn to the church--namely the rituals and ceremonies--as a young boy. It seems that Jim took his vows less for the spiritual implications and more as a place of refuge from a dysfunctional family.  However, this choice has actually isolated and alienated Jim from his kin. Jim has an alcoholic father, who is not keen about (nor proud of) his son's choice of career.  His mother is a church-going Catholic who prefers to adhere to her own rules rather than those of the church. Jim's brother's and sister's only claim to being Catholic is their reference to Jim as "our brother, the priest." Jim's ailing grandfather tenaciously clings to his faith to escape the lingering emotional wounds of war and his fear of impending death.  He seems to be the family member who shows the most reverence for God and displays a sincere depth of spirituality.

Jim returns to his hometown after being forced to take a sabbatical from the priesthood - he has broken his vows of celibacy with several women. Once home, he tries to deal with his family and grapple with the implications of what he has done. If that weren't enough, Reimringer ups the ante by having Jim cross paths with an old flame, a woman who was his first true love. Through a parallel structure, Reimringer peels back Jim's layers by interspersing powerful scenes from the past with the present action. This romantic subplot, told in real time and flashback, forces Jim to reconcile his feelings for the priesthood and helps him decide if he can stay committed to the celibate life, once and for all.

Reimringer casts Jim as a liberal ("abortion is not all wrong") and very self-forgiving Catholic. His modernity is real, and it makes him all the more accessible to the reader.  However, what was Jim's ultimate goal for his life by serving in the priesthood? And beyond the physicality of the Catholic Church and its rituals, did Jim ever cultivate an intimate, personal relationship with God and Jesus Christ? Questions like these kept me riveted to this novel and made me eager to make an emotional investment in this provocative story until the very last page.

Angel Time

"A writer can’t know everything about what she writes. It’s impossible. You reach deep down and you bring up what feels absolutely authentic to you as you move along with the book but you don’t know everything about it. You can’t." Anne Rice

Until I picked up Angel Time, I had never read the work of Anne Rice. Vampire stories don't interest me, but angels do - and that's exactly what drew me to Ms. Rice's latest novel. Long before there was The Twilight Saga and HBO's "True Blood," Anne Rice was cranking out The Vampire Chronicles, a whole series of mega-blockbusters. But when Ms. Rice gave atheism the heave-ho and personally reconnected with God and her Catholic faith after a 38-year hiatus, her writing goals suddenly changed and so did her stories. How fortunate for readers with tastes like mine! There have been the Christ the Lord books (Out of Egypt and The Road to Cana), fictionalized retellings of the life of Jesus. Called Out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession, a memoir about her life experiences growing up Catholic, becoming an atheist and her return to the Church. With Angel Time, Rice has written a suspenseful page-turner, a novel about a deeply wounded, contemporary Catholic who is lapsed, flawed and conflicted . . . and utterly fascinating.

Toby O'Dare (Jesuit-educated, age 28) has fled the Church and become a hired assassin. A loner with identity issues, Toby is bitter and rebellious toward a God who has permitted tragic losses to befall his fate. The horrifying backstory and lengthy flashback Rice paints about the protagonist's past is convincing and chilling - and makes the righteousness of Toby's anger at God seem completely justifiable. However, while Toby has outwardly turned his back on God and the Church, Catholicism continues to prey on his psyche - especially in his fondness for frequenting missions and chapels.

Toby says (page 9): "Maybe when you’re brought up Catholic, you hold to rituals all your life. You live in a theater of the mind because you can’t get out of it. You’re gripped all your life by a span of two thousand years because you grew up being conscious of belonging to that span . . . Never ever did I look at the nighttime stars or the sands of a beach without thinking of God’s promises to Abraham about progeny, and no matter what else I did or didn’t believe, Abraham was the father of the tribe to which I still belonged through no fault or virtue of my own."

When Toby utters a sarcastic prayer to God, an angel--Malchiah, a member of the Seraphim--suddenly appears to him in the midst of his performing a hit/murder. Malchiah offers Toby a chance to change his life and work for God rather than the people who hire Toby to kill for a living. “Redemption is something one has to ask for,” Malchiah tells him. The whole scene leading up to this supernatural encounter is masterfully-written and completely riveting that I wanted to stay in the present and have Toby find his redemption in the here and now. However, Rice unpredictably transports the reader back in time to the 13th Century (Norwich, England) where Toby, as a priest, undertakes a Divine assignment to aid a Jewish family facing mob violence.

Angel Time is the first in a proposed set of three novels written as part of the "Songs of the Seraphim" series. When asked in a recent interview to explain her motivation for writing novels about angels, Rice said, "It was time for me to try and make good guys as compelling as vampires...I was tired that the devil is always portrayed as the interesting one." With that as her aim, Angel Time more than succeeds.

Angel Time (The Songs of the Seraphim, Book One) by Anne Rice
(Knopf, Hardcover, 9781400043538, 288pp.)
Publication Date: October 27, 2009
To purchase this book via INDIEBOUND click HERE