Reviews Books

Eugenia Putman, "Miss Genie," is the lovable, respected, frequently honored head of Child Services, a woman with a special heart for the most damaged and hopeless children. Among her caseload are the crippled, the severely retarded, the blind, the legless, and the severely neglected. Throwaway children with little chance of improving their lot. And in grappling with their plight and their dearth of options, she talks herself into an extreme solution. One by one she kills them.

That's the plot in a nutshell, but the plot is only the beginning. Her struggles, her thought process, her elegant way of rationalizing the unthinkable, the graves in her back yard, and her ultimate downfall, make the most entertaining read I've encountered in a long time. The tale is elegantly crafted, beautifully written, gripping, and powerful. You will love these children, and you will love Miss Genie, in spite of everything.

Joallen Bradham is a talented writer with a special ear for language, for dialect, and for the nuances of feeling. To tell the truth, this book isn't for everyone--if you are squeamish about the ideas she portrays, you may not like the book. If you can detach just a bit, take it as it is, listen to the poetry--you will love it. I recommend Some Personal Papers highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.

This novel is just as JoAllen herself said; "It's a quick read, and a long think."

The press may specialize in books about the South, but the book itself deserves the attention of readers everywhere. Those who read for significant, thought-rpvoking subject matter will find it. Those who read for artistic method will rejoice.

SOME PERSONAL PAPERS is the story of Eugenia Putman, an urban social worker, who must deal with some of the saddest stories of child abuse and neglect. Although she tries her best to remain objective, eventually her sense of duty turns her to taking matters into her own hands. With just a few days left before her conviction, she retells what she felt she had to do and why. The story is full of irony as Bradham creates a character who challenges our sense that right and wrong is always clear cut. The plot is suspenseful and the setting is key to the artistry in Bradham's prose. I taught the novel with great success over the last two years, and I highly recommend it.

Some Personal Papers, which recently garnered author, JoAllen Bradham, the Georgia Fiction Writer of the Year Award, is a must read. This exquisitely told story is about Eugenia Putman, "Miss Genie," a dedicated social worker who is forced to make choices regarding the children in her personal care that few of us could ever make. This is a case of when "doing what's best" is, without a doubt, a case of "doing what's worst," but for all of the right reasons. Although it has often been said that actions speak louder than words, Miss Genie's actions cannot even be considered without first reading her story in her own words, words that scream at you about the often painful experience that is life for many people, and particularly for children. This is a story you will not soon forget.

Ms Henderson has taken from many, many sources to present a succinct analysis of myths from the past, works by many scholars, and today's world in order to show the need for all of us to have myths in our lives. Beginning with George Lucas' journey to creating Star Wars, moving into the cultural milieu in which the films were made to the that which the audiences brought and continue to bring, the author gives us the "reasons" for the motivation and then success of the 3 and later 6 movies done by Lucas. The book is well-illustrated with scenes from the movies, storyboards of its development, and art representing other myths, stories and legends of many cultures and times. A fantastic book for anyone looking for the core ideas of Lucas and his greatest work.

If you enjoy any of the books by Joseph Campbell and are a Star Wars fan, then this is the book for you. It covers everything from Greek mythology and Zen Buddhism to the Cowboy archetype and the uniforms of World War 2. Most of the artwork is incredible (many pics from the "Art of Star Wars" books), and there are tons of detailed photos from the Smithsonian tour, which I was lucky enough to catch at Houston's Museum of Fine Arts many years ago. I only wish they had waited a few years until the entire Prequel Trilogy was completed before they published this book!

Excellent book with amazing pics of the props and unusual images from the movies from the OT. Fantastic!!

Within this book I would say this incredible look into the mix of Mythology, History and Star Wars that I have ever seen. A great companion Book to the "Magic of Myth" exhibit.. and it would make a great companion book to the Joesph Campbell books "The Hero with a Thousand faces and "The Power of Myth."

Basically giving the impression of the origin of the Star Wars Films. How Lucas was influenced with all these ideas and made the films what they are today. How timeless the story really has been. Also available is some of the pre production artwork from the Classic Trilogy.

If you've been lucky enough to see "The Magic of Myth" in one of its many permutations, this book is a great supplement to and a wonderful reminder of just how cool that exhibit was. If you haven't seen the exhibit, this book is still great to have for it's back-story on the origins of the trilogy.

I'm not the most well-read person around so it was a lot of fun to learn how Lucas' characters and story were shaped by (or copied from) myths and legends of other times and cultures. Reading this book has led me to explore some of the material that Lucas borrowed from in creating Star Wars. I'm a big SW nut, but it's nice to get my head out of the SW universe and out into other forms of art and literature.

If you don't feel like reading, this book is also full of GREAT photos from the trilogy.

I keep this one on the shelf next to Joseph Campbell's "Power of Myth." It is a nice complement to Campbell's book.

True to the topic, it transports you right there. Historical and old, but still current.

I thought this book was one of the best books Ive ever read it describes how people feel and view the world from inside themselves but can never express this externally or even realise they are thinking these things themselves.

For me It depicts how inadequate we all are men and women, when it comes to Love, and expressing it and sharing it. it flumoxes us all, Its too big for us, "the chickens had more sense"....pass the worms please.

Written about a South African farm. this book depicts the story of a family and how they interact throughout the book. The most striking dynamic in the book is the relationships of the women in it. It portrays female existence in a realistic light even for today. The story has a lot of character to it, and I would recommend it highly for teachers who want to teach about feminism.

Although I had to read this book for a college class, I would read it again in a second, I feel that I can only gain more and more from this book through rereadings. Its plot is at times disjointed to the style of the author and the message she is attempting to convey, so for those who are looking for a strongly Dickensian or "feel good" read, this is most likely not the book for you right now. But for me, from an analytical and heartfelt standpoint, the subtlety of the book and its beauty and its truth made me tear up a little bit. I'm currently writing a paper on Waldo and his artistic and personal growth throughout the novel, so maybe I'm a little biased, but although Lyndall is an incredibly interesting and advanced character, I think Waldo is often glossed over as merely suffering from a religious crisis of faith, and, being a man, not deserving of attention in this novel of the "New Woman". But Waldo ultimately reaches a place of amazing peace and understanding, and the lives of Waldo and Lyndall intertwined together is truly beautiful.

"Story of an African Farm" is a difficult work to describe. It must be read several times, and carefully pondered before all of its secrets are unlocked.

Ostensibly, the book revolves around the lives of three children (and, later, adults) who live in the Karroo plains of South Africa. The main focus, however, is on two of the characters - Waldo, the earnest and deeply curious son of the German farmkeeper, and Lyndall, the beautiful, outspoken and rebellious orphan who suffers all her life for her ideals.

The book itself is semi-autobiographical. Waldo represents Schreiner's journey from fanatical, childlike faith to bitter skepticism, who reaches a watershed of sorts when he hisses to Lyndall 'There is no God - none!'. Lyndall, on the other hand, embodies Schreiner's frustation with her station as a woman - barred from the upper echelons of society, and her inability to find a mate who is both her intellectual match and willing to accept her as an equal. "I want to love", she whispers to the grave of Waldo's father, "I want something great and pure to lift me to itself."

There are many other themes that flesh out the subtext of this extraordinary book - the tragedy of solitude, that ultimately, all humans are alone in the cosmos. "Dear eyes", the dying Lyndall whispers to her mirror, "they will never part us."

Readers who expect a narrative will be dissapointed. What narrative there is serves only to undersore the book's many themes. Often, the flow of the story is out of sequence, or devoid of context, and deliberately so. Roughly, the book is divided into three sections - the first introduces us to the characters as children, and reveals their innermost thoughts. The second, and shortest section is entitled "Times and Seasons". It is somewhat of a summary of what has gone before, dealing mostly with Waldo's journey from Christian fanaticism to dispairing atheism, and foreshadows some of what is to come. The third, and longest section, covers the lives of the characters as adults, and is by far the most powerful, and moving piece of the book.

The reader who is looking for mindless action is advised to pick up the latest Tom Clancy novel, or whatever passes for literature these days. Those who are willing to put aside all preconceived notions, and have their cherished beliefs challenged are invited to read this book. The search for truth is endless. But this book is a perfect place to begin.

As a child, Tove Jansson lived in summer on islands in the Gulf of Finland, and later she and her partner Tuulikki Pietilä lived on a small island called Klovharu. Jansson wrote many children books, including the Moomin series, and ten books for adults.

The plot of the most famous of her adult novels is very simple; an elderly artist and her six-year-old granddaughter Sophia spend the summer on a tiny island exploring and talking about everything but Sophia's mother's death and their love for each other. They wander, pick flowers, watch storms, take trips in a rowboat. The 22 short episodes create a unity: "On an island," thinks the grandmother, "everything is complete."

The interaction between Sophia and her grandmother is a clash of wills, Sophia stubborn, impetuous and supportive; her grandmother wise, unsentimental, on the edge of exhaustion, dizzy, fearful of losing her balance "the balance between survival and extinction was so delicate that even the smallest change was unthinkable".

"It was just the same long summer always, and everything lived and grew at its own pace."

The book has been a major best seller in Scandinavia since it was first published in 1972. Thomas Teal has produced a wonderful English translation. This new edition from NYRB Classics is beautifully printed and bound. This novel captures a summer growing "at its own pace."

Robert C. Ross 2008

Based very much upon the late (and yes, great) Tove Jansson`s own family experiences on an island in the Finnish archipelago, this magical, elegiac, very funny, yet - despite its title - autumnal book, subtly draws the reader into the seemingly mundane lives of six-year old Sophia, whose mother has recently died, and `Grandmother` (who could almost be a humanised character from one of Jansson`s immortal Moomin books), as they potter and squabble around their small, idyllic island summer home.
Sophia`s `Papa` never speaks (never? Hm...) but is a silent, prosaic presence throughout, while Sophia is (as her name implies) wise, as well as temperamental, and Grandmother dispenses brief, ironic snippets of wisdom and can be just as prickly. They are a double-act; and, like all the best double-acts, rely on each other - at least for the grateful reader - to each `complete` the other. One feels Grandmother learns from her granddaughter as well as vice versa.
This is a beautiful, thoughtful, unsentimental, deceptively straightforward meander through the summer months with three generations of a grieving family each determined to hang on to their individuality. There are also the occasional - and rarely welcome - visitors.
If I make The Summer Book sound more than simply a light read, it is because even Tove Jansson`s children`s books (of which this can hardly be said to be one) have a tough melancholy strain to them, and a `message` of independence and personal integrity as the sanest way to be.
In its modest, breezy way, this is a great little book. One to treasure.

Mm, this is a beautiful, wonderful little book! It is a collection of little stories of a very small girl and her small grandmother going adventures on their little island in Sweden. So full of green things and little bites of happiness. The grandmother is oh so clever and says so many poignants to the girl. The girl is wise too. So full of joy.

This book was given to me by an uncommon friend and I enjoyed it very much. It is about the friendship between a grandmother and her young grandaughter who live on a bit of an island in Finland (?). The beauty and treasures discovered in the quiet lives they lead, finding joy in simple things and loving each other besides those petty annoyances of personality (they are very much alike). There are many "huggable" humorous moments. I think of one in which they trade cats--their cat is indifferent to the grandaughter's overtures and the one traded was much more warm and cuddly, but then (and I quote from the book).

"Hunt! Do something! Be like a cat!" And then she started to cry and ran to the guest room and banged on the door.
"What's wrong now?" Grandmother said.
"I want Moppy back!" Sophia screamed.
"But you know how it will be," Grandmother said.
"It'll be awful," said Sophia gravely. "But it's Moppy I love."

I rejoice that this short work has come into print again, though it's rather sad that it took the author's recent death to prompt the publishers into action. I'd read an extract in a guide to the top 100 books of the twentieth century and was surprised and disappointed not to be able to get my hands on the full edition.

Jansson has an inate understanding of the wisdom and skewed world-view of children, and manages to capture the fragile - and ephemeral - friendship which can exist between the very old and the very young. There is a freshness about her style which never teeters into whimsy. A rare achievement indeed.

Touched is a novel of small town Mississippi in the 1920's. The humid, atmospheric setting is invaluable to the novel. The narrator is a young girl who was sold to an older man as his bride. Their relationship is at first violently abusive. As the story progresses, relationships change, lives change, the town itself changes. It is a wonderful look at the best and worst of humanity. Carolyn Haines is a fabulous writer. Her characters become part of your life. What a gift!

I love Carolyn Haines!!! Especially when she writes in this genre. I do enjoy the Sarah Booth Delany books as well, but it is like comparing a fine wine to Kool-Aid!
When the author writes in this genre it is always tough, life then was never "pretty" or easy, yet she counters it with characters who are gracious.
The only critism was the ending, a bit too abrupt. Or perhaps I just did not want it to end??

This book is different than the Carolyn Haines mysteries I have read, and is just as enjoyable. Touched is written in beautiful language, and I felt as if I were right there in the thick Mississippi summer heat, felt the heavy air just before a thunderstorm would hit. She knows how to weave a story so that you just want to keep on going.

I am glad I stumbled across this author and her books!

Ya never know what your gonna get. Touched is one of those books you think about at work...because you want to get home and finish it. I love it when Southern authors can make you feel the heat and humidity with their words; parts of this book reminded me of To Kill a Mockingbird (because of the place descriptions and the weather.)This is actually a quick read but you find yourself slowing down to savor the story. A five star book through and through!

Carolyn Haines' descriptions are so vivid and powerful that I felt I was walking on the road or actually sitting in the room with her characters. There were times the hairs on my arms just stood up or my heart was breaking with them. If Carolyn Haines was attempting to reveal the narrow mindness of people in small towns of the South, my opinion is She Nailed It. If she was trying to awaken compassion in her readers She Nailed It. Her characters took my heart. I am having flashbacks of times in her story and I am in the exact same spot with them I was while reading the book. I would recommend this as a wonderful read. It hurts but it certainly makes one think. I am so glad I read it. I believe it awakened a compassion in me which will remain a lifetime.

This is not for beginners, but for someone with a few years of basic high school or college French this is perfect to brush up and improve those lacking areas that were either missed the first time or have been forgotten a few years after taking French courses.

I leave it on the coffee table and work through the short exercises (with answer keys!) during TV commercial breaks or for half an hour before bed. The grammar rules are explained very concisely, chapters aren't very wordy. Most of the pages are taken up by the exercises and vocab tables with translations (most bang for your buck).

I took four years of French in high school but didn't pay too much attention in class during the final two years. After five years I am kicking myself for not absorbing the more complicated grammar and vocab in my later French courses. When I saw this book at the bookstore I flipped through it for five minutes and was sold.

This is an excellent review book, whether you want an overall review to "brush up", or whether you need to focus on some specific problem areas. The focus is on grammar, but with a medium-small vocabulary base, you will successfully use it to build common vocabulary, as the exercises are focused on everyday events. I did every exercise in the book and then bought the Spanish version!

This is a great French review book. It is a very useful reference for anyone trying to better their French. It includes easy to follow grammar lessons along with corresponding activities. Answers are provided in the back of the book so you can easily check your work. Anyone trying to really keep up with the language needs a great handbook, I recommend The Ultimate French Review for this purpose.

This is one of the best french grammar books I've seen. It is outlined beautifully and easy to comprehend. It describes things in the simplest of terms, therefore making it easy to understand.

I tutor a high school student and I had her buy it. We usually teach the grammar from this book, not her class french book. The CD is superb. The exercises are great. It allows one to practice constantly. It definitely helps.

I love this book. I recommend this to someone who is just starting out and the accomplished speaker.

I cannot rave enough about this book. First, it is extremely engaging and well-organized for a French grammar book. It is geared toward the Intermediate student (as, for example, the lesson instructions are in French). However, if you are an advanced beginner looking for a challenge, don't shy away. There are tons of exercises to reinforce your learning, including a CD with a diagnostic test and other learning tools (including some auditory dialogues). If you are looking for an excellent grammar book to supplement your auditory learning, I highly recommend this one!

This is so packed with details that I am always searching for. It's awesome, it's so cool. It has everything that you need to know about the X-files, I have nothing but praise for the author. I love the fact that it told so much about all of the characters and stuff, and it's just so great that I recommend if you're as obsessed as I am about the show, to go and buy it. It's definitely worth the price. Again, really great book!!!

I thought that the book had alot to give and I realy liked it. If any one has a good X-files book tell me what it is called

Absolutely, positively, without a doubt the best and most complete reference book that has ever been published on THE X-FILES. This incredibly detailed and beautifully illustrated book covers everything you ever wanted to know about THE X-FILES but were afraid to ask! It is a massive undertaking that covers everything in easy to use A-Z alphabetical format. Every entry cites the episode it came from and every character has the actor's name. Say for example, in the letter (B): you will find lengthy entries for everything from Bear ("Ice") to Bay Area Carpeteers (the Chinese employer of Shuyang Hsin in "Hell Money") and Big Blue ("Quagmire"), from Babcock ("Gethsemane") to Bright White Place ("Nisei") and Biodiversity Project ("F. Emasculata") and tons of entries in between. It is also a very timely book as it covers all previous 4 seasons. I also love the classy look of the book, the good-grade paper and the typeset inside and, especially the price. Oh, how could I forget the illustrations! No more reused stock photos (that we've all seen in every magazine), but the coolest artwork enhances the book. Wait until you check out Flukeman, Mama Peacock and Dr. Zama! THE X-CYCLOPEDIA is a BIG book (with thousands of entries) and for only $15 it's a better deal than the 2 or 3 X-Files magazines I buy each month that total more than $15. If you call yourself an X-Phile, then you don't want to be without this DEFENITIVE reference book to the series! This is THE book of the X-FILES, and I highly recommend it.

This is definitely a 'must have' book for all X-Files fans! Every person, place, company name, historical reference or 'you name it' ever mentioned in seasons 1-4 is covered here! Also serves as an episode guide! Mine stays right next to me whenever I am watching the reruns! Get it...now!

This is the COMPLETE reference guide to my favorite TV show. Idon'tthink the authors missed a thing in this book...it is absolutely mind-boggling to see so many entries. From A to Z, The X-Files has never before been put under such focused, affectionate, and meticulous scrutiny. The X-CYCLOPEDIA is the ULTIMATE reference book on the series and if I only had $15 in my pocket and could only buy one book about THE X-FILES, then it would be this one. Hands down, this is THE best reference book on THE X-FILES ever written. I give it two thumbs up, four stars, or whatever critics use as a measuring stick. No X-Phile should be without it! The truth is no longer OUT there...it is IN the X-CYCLOPEDIA!

If you think you know EVERYTHING about the best show on television, you're wrong. These guys pull up obscure info and quiz you on it, drawing not only from the episodes but from interviews, books, and magazines. This is a great book and a must for an X-Phile's library! My only complaint: after reading Phil Farrand's lighthearted Nitpicker's Guide, the authors of this book seem really critical. I mean, what's up with their review of "War of the Coprophages"? Lighten up! Other than that, of course, diehard fans will cherish this book.

It seems everybody is doing an episode guide, but this book is different...it is all trivia, behind-the-scenes, and nitpicking. Loads of fun if THE X-FILES is your weekly fix. My son and I used it as a game to keep us occupied on a flight from NYC to San Diego as we tested each other's knowledge of our favorite TV show. I highly recommend this book...Must reading for X-Philes

Over 1,000 questions from the first three (3) seasons of my favorite TV show in a challenging format to test the gray cells of my brain. How would I describe this book: An X-Files version of JEOPARDY! More than just something to read...a book to play and damn well worth the $$$. I highly recommend it to any die-hard X-Phile

I've always considered myself an X-pert. None of my online friends (or real life for that matter) has ever been able to stump me on X-Files trivia. I'm completely addicted to the show and have 15 books.

This one is definately one of the best, pointing out many of the nitpicks and netpicks we've philes have already discovered in addition to new ones that sent me back to look for them. The trivia is extremely difficult and interesting.

I recommend this book to all philes who think they know it all. Take a few months to memorize this book and then you will know it all.

My brother got me this book for my birthday two years ago. It is my bible and my life (kind of sad, actually!) Anyways, it's really good and like that other guy said, if you take a few months to memorize it, you'll the X-Files Genius and you can impress your friends with little tidbits of knowledge. For example, what's Scully's home phone number? I'm not telling.. get it and look it up yourself! Note: good book for diehard fans!

We Think The World Of You is basically a tale of "you don't
get what you want you get what you get". In the case of Frank
he wanted Johnny but ends up with a dog named Evie. An amusing
and sly look at some working class personalities and carry on.

Fantastic book !

John

First published in 1960, this book is a delicious souffle, which J. R. Ackerley has whipped to perfection. It tells the hilarious story of the love triangle involving Frank, a buttoned-down civil servant, Johnny, the working class guy he's in love with, and the beautiful, headstrong Evie. As the story opens, Johnny has been sentenced to a year in jail for breaking and entering, and Frank is worried that this will give Johnny's pregnant wife, Megan, the chance to freeze him out of Johnny's life altogether.

But in the end it's the beautiful Evie that precipitates the final crisis, forcing Frank to go through some painful self-discovery along the way. Ackerley's tone is pitch-perfect throughout. An offbeat book that is completely hilarious.



Did I mention that Evie is a German shepherd?

It would be hard to make the case that WE THINK THE WORLD OF YOU is by any means a major work, but why should that lessen your fun? Ackerley's novel is very much a surprise in its relegation of its homoeroticism (dealt with very honestly and matter-of-factly) to the background; the protagonist's homosexuality is treated as simply a matter of course rather than as the center of concern, and what gets greater attention is his complicated relationship with his lover's family and dog.

The narrator himself is a terrific creation: sneaky, pompous, arrogant, and yet also somewhat likeable despite it all. And so too are the lover's parents and the dog herself--it all has the ring of reality about it. This is a minor delight, but a delight nonetheless.

This fantastic piece of high art just gets funnier and funnier and more blackly though generously hilarious with each successive page. Brilliant.

It's practically impossible to imagine a book like this being published in today's publishing atmosphere, but thankfully, NYRB is around to buck that trend. I mean what editor today would manage a straight face upon opening a proposal about a middle-aged gay man taking care of the irrepressible dog of his working-class lover who's in jail? But as usual, with any work of art -- craft, talent, intelligence, compassion -- this remarkable work is so much more than that. Around its droll premise, Ackerley found a way to brilliantly expose the pettiness of people, regardless (or precisely because) of their social standing. The dog, which is just as vividly alive as each of this novel's (bipedal) characters, is really only it's lovable catalyst. But finally, what makes this work astounding is how it slyly and assuredly gets funnier and funnier and more blackly though generously hilarious with each successive page. A real snicker of a book.

This final entry--1988 marks its long-delayed arrival--in a lengthy career (starting in the mid-1940s) of scant fiction marks the end of the postwar, triumphalist, yet marginalized, Midwestern Catholic parish--and notably here, rectory--intrigues that Powers excelled at conveying. His scale, being so focused, gains accuracy and depth by its concentration upon detail. Like a model railroad set, the 1:150 (or whatever!) ratio means painstaking attention to fidelity. Such realism to the untutored eye appears grotesque or caricatured, but to an aware observer reveals a nearly exact fit of form with content.

I give it four rather than five stars as I have re-read (and reviewed here, "Morte" and the thirty stories in their original three volumes as well as the collected reissue) all of Powers recently, and I believe that his many strengths as a writer are at times clouded slightly by his tendency towards oversubtlety. A forgivable fault in an era of so many authors straining for the obvious or what critics call "overdetermining" their subject, but Powers tends in all his work towards lengthy passages where not much goes on at all, but in which an editor could have polished the presentation and refined the craft even further. Powers appears to have been his own worse enemy and his own most scrupulous critic, on the other hand. Be it as it may, Powers makes nearly all of his peers look hasty, scattered, and undisciplined by comparison.

Action over the course of a priest's youth, coming of age, and gradual rise from curate to administrative assistant (when that word did not connote a secretary or receptionist) and then pastor comprises the narrative. Less verve here than the worldlier, more urbane Fr Urban had, but perhaps in his principled if compromised (the whole crux of the tension) fidelity to the needs of separating "Church from Dreck" Powers reveals that the need for reform Fr Urban realized while Vatican II was still in session (so to speak) by the end of the decade became all the more apparent as the slow slide downhill accelerated. Set by its conclusion around 1968, if offhandedly, the Catholic Worker roots of Powers and his conservative radicalism stand his fictional main character in good stead as priests wander off, parishioners ignore crusty priests' reprimands, malls open on Sundays, the hillbilly's war machine thunders on in the small town press, and guitars with cant supplant chant.

This novel, like his earlier (sharing with it a clumsy if rarified referential title) "Morte d'Urban," (1962), suffers from arid stretches, where the humor is so deadpan, the pace so true that the inert nature of our own shared experience with the clerical protagonists appears too neatly aligned. Dullness enters. A VD quarantine warning takes up one and a half pages verbatim. A few sample sermons from Father Felix (who helps out saying weekend Masses) summarize the stultifying, yet sincere, homiletics of a certain, less soundbitten, age. So with Powers, who in this novel had been criticized as a man out of time, with figures he identified with whose era had passed them by. Joe is only in his mid-forties. He seems much older. This may be a sign of now-diminished respect, when the maturity demanded of authority figures gave an earned dignity and a bit of unearned noblesse oblige to the clergy in smaller towns where the collar still mattered. Joe Hackett manages to get through the routine, and out of the limelight that had once courted his counterpart Fr. Urban, this parish priest does his best balancing God with Mammon, as the demands of a new accounting system make fundraising all the more essential, even as this pulls at the Gospel admonition that it's better to give alms in secret. How to square this with the need to make accountable freeloading parishioners when the Archbishop's needs come payable on demand? Out of such quandaries, Powers raises his own quiet art.

The need in fiction for a jolt, a spark, a spin off from the quotidian to the profound nestles, certainly, in Powers. This, however, moves along leisurely, and often nothing seems to happen for chapters at a time. Then, you understand that this accurately limns the trajectory of a recognizably human life like our own. You can see Powers' study of Joyce in his preparation of the slow ascent to epiphanies, such as Fr. Joe Hackett's finessed blessing of a scruffy draft resister who steps to tie his shoelaces while the padre finagles praying over his head and out of eyesight or earshot as the young man prepares to flee to Canada, on the pastor's unspoken advice but according to his moral example.

Re-reading this nearly two decades after it appeared, I admire Powers' critique of not only the institutional Church and its compromises with the world, but of his own admission that holy Joes only go so far in their own zeal in battling for their losing side. They must do so, vowed to do so and called by their Maker, but Powers recognizes in his own mellowing how annoying piety and phariseeism can be for the rest of us. Not for nothing is an early battle Joe engages in at the seminary, much to the disgust of some classmates and the suspicion of his rector, over the necessity of wearing a hairshirt.

Constructed in part from stories written over the past (two of which appeared in the last of his three thin story collections, 1975's "Look How the Fish Live," the novel does let its seams show. I wonder if parts of this novel were left too long on the shelf, or in hibernation. Yet, this is how Powers wrote. Very slowly, spending days pondering if a character would use the term "pal" or "chum" in referring to a confrere. Such was his state of mind, and more power to him. Probably a patron saint of scrupulous writers, if he is canonized as he deserves! His friend and colleague Jon Hassler eulogized him as "a saint with a bad temper." Hassler notes how Powers could strain so long over a detail that a reader, even an informed one such as himself, might miss the very nuanced finesse.

The extended battle of the story that was "Bill" for Joe to learn his new curate's name appears tedious and unbelievable, a shaggy-dog tale after a few pages of the many devoted to this embarrassing and rather cryptic episode. The story earlier published as "Priestly Fellowship" enters the novel mostly unchanged, but again the dive into the post-Vatican II uproar appears muted, if perhaps less dated for its lack of topicality to specific changes so much as the persistent lack of clerical fidelity. Yet, as the novel lengthens, the episodes do build upon possibilities tucked into these two stories, and while they unfold in off-handed and perhaps overly-controlled fashion, they are truer to the texture of everyday life for being so controlled. Holiness comes, if at all, minutely slow. The lack of histrionics or forced symbolism remains despite the uneven pacing in his longer works Powers' greatest talent. Powers knew when and how indirect first-person voice carried his stories; his shift in and out of his protagonist's minds is at its best in the imagined reverie Joe lets himself into as he pitches in the yard with Bill to let off steam. As with Urban's similarly prosy--both exaggerated and ordinary-- temptation at Belleisle in "Morte," the priestly heroes let their deepest selves emerge when they pretend they are just like the rest of us. Powers, and we, know better.

A final word, quoted from one of his students in Commonweal on his death in 1999. In the novel, out of his collar on a much-needed vacation, Joe passes himself off at the hotel bar as working for a "big concern," in "life insurance." The firm? "Eternal." Sort of a multinational, he admits, although he works out of a local "branch office." Powers explained when asked in class why he wrote so much about the clergy, and if he was anticlerical. "I'm not anticlerical. I simply look for a story that elucidates truth. If a human being buys an insurance policy, that's not much of a story. But when a priest buys an insurance policy, there's something going on that needs to be said and I want to say it." It took him nearly fifty years to write it.

Anyone who has not read J.F. Powers is missing a major American voice in letters. This review will not be adequate to even speak of his skill.

Complete lives are sketched with the faintest of references, such as a family who the hero, Father Joe Hackett, brings from the city to remind his comfy parishioners of the trials of the poor (shades of the "holy poverty in the city" mantra so common from my youth). He tells their entire story with three unconnected lines sprinkled as a leitmotif throughout the narrative.

The hero's interior monologue is both revealing, and surprising. Throughout the novel faint points of challenges and grace (and simple, just-sufficient grace) carry the reader along with Father Joe's eventual conversion (rededication?). This is the story of a bumbling soul who eventually inhales the breath of the Divine.

Every person I've ever given a J.F. Powers book to has thanked me (Catholics and non-Catholics alike). Highly recommended, for this is monumentally great literature.

It is nothing short of a tragedy that more readers aren't familiar with J.F. Powers. This book is truly brilliant. Powers is at heart more craftsman than contemporary novelist, which is doubtless why he only published two novels. Wheat That Springeth Green is unlike anything else I've ever read. It's that rare novel that achieves perfection.

Joe Hackett, for all his faults, is one of the most fully-realized and sympathetic characters in contemporary fiction. As he matures, so does the book: from his hilariously overblown pretensions at the seminary, to his ennui and malaise as a pastor, to his subtly glorious final redemption.

In the final analysis, the book is not so much satire as fable about goodness. Despite being about the life of priests, the book is more a moral fable than a simply Catholic one: it's about how to do good in a world where it all seems futile. Joe Hackett is a cynic, but he's also at heart an idealist and optimist. So is J.F. Powers.

I read it in the early fall, a perfect time of year for me to read this sort of book, as it reminded me of my early years as a student at a Catholic elementary school in the suburbs. The book follows the life of a Catholic priest named Joe Hackett who struggles with faith and politics and more than anything else the shattering mundanity of his suburban life. Tree-lined streets, shopping malls, station wagons, vinyl siding, and wall to wall carpeting are Hackett's foils in a book that manages to be charming, melancholy, and very funny at the same time. Reading the book turned out to be a great way to spend a few September weeks. If anyone out there happened to enjoy The Sportswriter and Independence Day by Richard Ford, then you will enjoy this book as well.

The best of the series of books published by The New York Review of Books are all the works of J.F. Powers, who died in 1989. Powers' novels and stories are almost entirely concerned with Catholic clerical life in the midwest. I hadn't read his last novel, Wheat That Springeth Green, and I was happy to find that the new edition contained an introduction by the author's daughter, Katherine Powers. Wheat That Springeth Green is every bit as fine as Morte D'Urban, his first and only other novel written some 25 years earlier, and a National Book Award winner as well. In its treatment of character and plot the latter novel is theologically perhaps even more complex.

Joe's character is cast from the first pages: as a toddler he gets attention from his parents' friends merely for declaiming at a party "I go to church!" We also learn of his parents' antipathy towards the parish priest's intoning on the subject of the "Dollar-a-Sunday Club," an attitude that Joe will inherit, and which becomes a theme that will be played out in a number of surprising ways. We also sense something of his aloofness in these first chapters as well. He doesn't keep up with many friends, but he does seem to know the value in keeping up appearances: "Joe just smiled at Frances and everybody, so they couldn't tell how he really felt about being in the sack race..." Joe is a good athlete, even in grade school, and the race he really wants, but doesn't get, is the sprint.

Much of the story revolves around Joe's relation to money, so that even an early adventure (described in nearly pornographic detail) involving his first adult relations with women is later understood to be subsumed by his larger pecuniary obsessions. His sexual sins, or at least the memory of them, turn out to be something of a red herring: at the seminary he asks his instructor, "Father, how can we make sanctity as attractive as sex to the common man?" a question that (rightly) earns him nothing but mirth from his fellow seminarians. We are given hints that as Joe grows older he succeeds in overcoming his youthful scrupulosity. After a stint at Archdiocesan Charities he is assigned to the parish of St. Frances - a name shared by his childhood infatuation and a co-traveler in that youthful adventure. So as far as sex is concerned, there is in his maturity there a sense that all is right with Joe, if not the world. That this is the case is dramatically reinforced by the nearly hopeless entanglements of an ex-seminarian, some of which leads to misplaced retribution that Joe patiently, even faithfully endures. These episodes are magnificently structured, displaying in Joe's life a kind of fate that is worked out through choices made less in freedom than with a concern for propriety and in service to principles that are neither his own, nor of the church in which, as he says in other circumstances, he does so much hard time.

Other obstacles to holiness, as perhaps they always must, remain. Although his basic attitude is good, the reader realizes that the young Father Hackett has refused one halo in favor of another when he refuses to toady up to either the priest in his parish or to the archbishop in his archdiocese. Money matters are everywhere in evidence: the rectory built by Joe; bribes offered by parishoners; purses collected on behalf of retiring priests; inheritence; a collection drive that is farmed out to a private firm - in which Joe will take no part. All this points to beyond the contradiction in one man's character to a paradox that is funamental to our very being. How do we care for an abundance which is most fully ours when we least consider it our own?

Joe's misappropriation of his own nature, and indeed human nature, leads to a truly heinous transgression in one of the final chapters. That this transgression is committed and then resolved in secret, without comment from Joe or even the narrator, points toward a God who is as truly all merciful as he is unnoticed even by lesser beings working on his behalf. I would guess that the true thorn in Joe's side is also Powers', and while reading I several times wondered whether the crux of the story wasn't inspired by his frustration at watching baskets and plates passed through the pews, week in and week out, for a lifetime.

Very highly recommended.