My review of Gerard O'Donovan's novel The Priest appears in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, and it was a tough one to write.An aspect or two of the book drove me nuts, and this distressed me for two reasons: I don't like knocking books, and I feared that my quibbles might seem like idiosyncratic nit-picking.
But I saw my editor preparing his bamboo shoots and thumb screws, so I wrote the review, and I'm glad I did. My complaints only brought into sharper relief the novel's most interesting aspects: It's about a serial attacker/killer, but it does not get inside the attacker/killer's head. Nor, despite the horrific injuries the attacker inflicts, does O'Donovan dwell on them in loving detail.
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A reader from the state of Fatti maschii, parole femine knew that Pope John Paul II's visit to Dublin forms part of the backstory to The Priest. Her womanly words win her a copy of the novel. Congratulations.***
My editor excised from the review one damned I'd used as an intensifier. What would he have made of this story?© Peter Rozovsky 2011
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