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(More customer reviews)Degrees of Difference
If you like a good mystery, you may enjoy this book, but it is much more than just a mystery story. And although it is a novel, in parts it reads more like a treatise on the ills of society, particularly American society, specifically through the eyes of someone who grew up during a time when America was much more predictable than it is today.
And although the plot is a good one-a priest dies mysteriously and wheels are set in motion to try to determine if he was murdered, and if so, why-the book's theme is the main thing here. That can be summed up as follows: give me that old time Roman Catholic religion-it's good enough for me. The author does not try to hide the fact that he is a disillusioned Roman Catholic-still a Roman Catholic in spite of the narrator's owning up to being an apostate from the faith (an admission nonetheless not solidly confirmed in the way things work out in the novel)-who regrets almost everything that has changed in the Roman Church since Vatican II. There is a lot of blame to go around, and some readers may recognize specific real priests, cardinals, church leaders in the guise of the characters presented in this work of fiction.
Readers who grew up in Brooklyn in the Fifties will also find much here to enjoy, and if you grew up in Bay Ridge or South Brooklyn, you will be happily reminded of how good life was there at that time.
Although just 180 pages long, there's quite a lot to ponder. A fast read-provided you don't stop to think about all the implications the author stirs up-and a good read at that!
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Joe Ratigan is divorced, alienated and living in California when he learns of the death of a man of whom he has a vague recollection from his young years in Brooklyn. He contacts the dead man''s family and is drawn reluctantly into matters about which he knew and cared little, but which he comes to understand go a long way to explaining the condition in which the world finds itself. Ratigan becomes deeply entangled in the dead man''s affairs when he meets the dead man''s sister. Her questions and her prodding induce him to travel from California to Rome, New York and Washington in search of answers. Among the memorable characters providing answers are priests and bishops whose views and practices help explain the collapse of Catholicism in the last third of the twentieth century. The story begins from the standpoint of a first person, and is then intertwined with a third-person account of related events. The two threads become one as the story unfolds. Hedonism and self-sacrifice contest the battleground that is Ratigan throughout the book as he tries to make sense of the matter into which he was unwillingly drawn -- but, as in life, humor erupts periodically to reward the reader with breaks from the deadly serious nature of the work.
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