My great failure in making New Years’ resolutions has always been a lack of specificity. It’s always “I’m going to work out more” or “I’m going to eat local,” very general statements with no real strategy behind them. This year, however, I decid
ed to make myself a workable plan to read more books. After doing a bit of Googling, I discovered this idea – 52 books in 52 weeks, or a book a week for an entire year. Though I had my initial doubts, I’ve decided to give it a try. Five weeks in, I’m actually loving it (and realizing I have a lot more free time than I thought – thanks Facebook).
My book for this week was Faith by Jennifer Haigh. Set in the Boston area, this novel compares the heyday of the Catholic Church to its more recent reputation of pedophilia and scandal. The narrator, Sheila McGann, really personalizes the issue with her own stories – of her blindly faithful Irish-Catholic mother, her hopelessly alcoholic father, and her brother, Father Art, who has been accused of molesting a young boy in his parish.
As a Catholic school girl who grew up knowing only the disgraced reputation of both the Church and the priesthood, I was fascinated by Sheila’s comparison of her honorable Catholic upbringing in the 1970s to the wave of scandal that hit the Boston Archdiocese in 2002. Through Sheila’s incredibly intimate point of view, Haigh brings a fresh perspective to a seemingly one-sided story. As Sheila resolves to prove Art innocent, the reader follows her on a journey that both condemns and redeems the Church of its sins.