Clerical Errors: A Novel - Softcover

Isler, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0743210611 ISBN 13: 9780743210614

Publisher: Touchstone, 2002

Synopsis

Aside from his blatant lack of piety -- and the fact that he's Jewish -- Father Edmond Music could have been a model priest. Now, entrenched at an English estate with a vast library, he would rather pursue a decades-old liaison with his housekeeper than crack down on his assistant's dial-a-confession phone ministry, or, more important, investigate the whereabouts of a rare Shakespeare text gone missing on his watch.
Then, out of nowhere, penance comes due. His car is found totaled (possibly by Vatican hit men), his annoying archrival of the cloth is looking to nail him as a thief, and the once-passionate housekeeper is lapsing into religious fervor. With his forty-year idyll falling apart, Edmond can no longer ignore the danger of the present, or the echoes of his buried past.
National Jewish Book Award-winning author Alan Isler delivers a hilarious and touching literary homily, confirming his unique gift for mingling comedy and tragedy in this deeply moving exploration of faith, love, and identity.

About this title

Review:

The New Yorker Gleefully blasphemous and unerringly comic.

Tahl Raz San Francisco Chronicle An oddly affecting comic gambol through faith, felony, and the limits of human love...The wit (and ire) is often pitch perfect...By novel's end, few things escape unscathed save one's faith in a good read.

Donna Rifkind The Washington Post Wonderfully antic...Rich and strange and not easily forgotten.

Noah Isackson Chicago Tribune A sophisticated comedy of faith...Isler guides an entertaining story through the sacred and profane.

Book Description:

'Alan Isler is brilliant... The wit is sumptuous and sophisticated, the timing and pace perfect' - Daily Telegraph

About this edition

• Publisher: Touchstone
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0743210611
• ISBN 13: 9780743210614
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288