Publisher's Weekly Review
White's detailed and engrossing second novel (after A Brother's Blood) follows class tensions, shame and loyalty among New England's Irish-American Catholics when a scandal shakes a small-town church. Eighteen years before the novel begins, Father John Thomas Devlin rescued White's appealing, ingenuous narrator, Irish immigrant Maggie "Ma" Quinn, from alcoholism, prostitution and destitution. Since then, she's worked as the loyal live-in housekeeper at the rectory of his church in western Massachusetts. Maggie is stunned and disbelieving when two adult brothers, Bobby and Russell Roby, allege that the upright, selfless, and hardworking priest molested them when they were boys, 15 years ago. As police and press descend on their community, gossip swirls around Maggie and Father Jack; townsfolk begin to ostracize them. Maggie, like the reader, gradually begins to doubt the priest she once trusted. After Father Jack is arrested and relieved of his duties, Maggie starts drinking heavily, and inadvertently gives damaging testimony at Father Jack's trial. When the priest accepts a plea bargain, Maggie considers his four-year sentence her fault. Then Father Jack is indicted again, for the long-unsolved murder of an altar boy. Though her judgment seems rock solid, Maggie's drinking undermines her credibility as a narrator. Yet her melancholy, singular voice is so strong, her faith in herself and in Father Jack so compelling, that readers will speed through the book in order to discover the truth. Agent, Nat Sobel. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Editor and novelist White (American Fiction IV, 1993, etc.; the mystery A Brother's Blood, 1996) describes the trial of a Catholic priest for sodomy and murder in a small Massachusetts town. Behind every good priest, in this country at least, stands an Irish widow with an iron and a broom. Maggie Quinn seems to fit the rectory housekeeper mold pretty well: Fiercely loyal to her employer, Father Jack Devlin, she nurses him when he's sick, worries when he comes home late, and allows herself a drop of his Jameson's now and again when his back is turned. A single mother from County Galway, Maggie left Ireland brokenhearted after her young son drowned. Once in the States, though, she went from bad to worse and finally ended up in a mental hospital after a failed suicide attempt. There she was found by Father Jack, who got her back on her feet and gave her a new lease on life. Now, though, her placid world starts to unravel anew when two former altar boys accuse Father Jack of rape. Maggie sticks by Father Jack even after he's convicted and sent to jail, proclaiming his innocence to her neighbors and suffering no small humiliation as a result. But things become even more ominous when, while in prison, Father Jack is indicted again--this time for the murder of a 12-year-old boy. Again, Maggie comes to the priest's defense, but some of the details of the case are troubling, even to her. Has she misplaced her trust? Or is it simply being tried? In the end, Maggie discovers that ""faith"" means a lot more than the Penny Catechism let on. Overlong and written in a rambling, anecdotal style (""Now Mrs. Burke had a son named Franny, and here's where things take a bad turn"") that's annoying. But White's narrative is strong enough to overcome his own verbosity and provides some nice twists along the way. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
White works remarkable magic in this stunning novel, which casts the reader completely under the spell of Maggie Quinn, whose compelling voice mixes an Irish lilt with a raw whiskey edge. Maggie was housekeeper to Father Jack Devlin for 18 years. He saved her from madness and worse after the death of her child, as he saved many others in their small Massachusetts town. But now she visits him as he sits imprisoned, sent down by the accusations of two malicious boys grown up. In Maggie's cadences, we learn how a place can unravel completely, how affections and remembrances can be twisted, bought, and misremembered, how the search for justice often means petty cruelties nursed to boiling, how a lifetime of doing good can vanish like mist in the face of accusation spoken loud enough. Maggie herself shows us how elusive memory and truth are, as she tries to find exactly what she remembers in the face of her rock-solid love. The answers remain elusive, and the climax is explosive and heartbreaking, but there is a gutsy pleasure in being in the grip of this story. Maggie is so real, and the tale so like the ones we hear far too often. The things we learn come perilously close to our own souls. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido
Library Journal Review
Father Jack Devlin has been the parish priest in a small Massachusetts town for more than 20 years when two former altar boys accuse him of molesting them many years ago. Though the boys have criminal records and questionable credibility, the town's loyalty to Father Devlin is torn. Only Maggie Quinn, his longtime housekeeper, is convinced of his innocence. The trial is volatile, the press is out for blood, and Maggie's drinking diminishes the impact of her testimony. Alone in the rectory throughout the trial, Maggie begins to doubt her own certainty. Then the unsolved murder of a young boy resurfaces, and town talk links it with Devlin's case. The case is reopened, and Devlin is once again scheduled for trial, aided by the tireless efforts of Leo Manzetti, his crusty legal counsel. White (A Brother's Blood) has received high praise for earlier works, and this latest offering should be equally well received. Its taut suspense, well-crafted characters, and dense atmosphere of justice and belief are compelling. Highly recommended.ÄSusan Clifford, Aerospace Corp., El Segundo, CA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.