Father Frank Moore--once the Cardinal's golden boy, now in a self-imposed exile because he doubts his faith--is assigned the investigation of a supposed miracle, an appointment he sees as a possible path toward redemption
His new novel She's Not There will be released in October 2023. His screenplay Caravaggio won the Golden Palm for Best Screenplay at the Beverly Hills International Film Festival 2021. His play Caravaggio is published by Dramatic Publishing. He wrote the novel The Third Miracle (Simon & Schuster) and co-wrote the screenplay adaptation produced by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Ed Harris and Anne Heche, directed by Agneiskza Holland and released by Sony Picture Classics. His teleplay adaptation of his published stage play The Marriage Fool is now running on Amazon starring Walter Matthau and Carol Burnett.
V, if you're looking for this one, too, it's another you gave to me as you left for the Peace Corps. What really struck me about this one was how clear the setting seemed. It made me want to go drive around Maspeth. It was engaging and thought-provoking: the thoughts it provoked were mostly about people's roles in religion.
Vetere should have done more research about the Catholic Church. He mixed up parts of the Mass,consecrating the wine before the bread. He did not know that people who commit suicide can be buried in a catholic cemetery and it takes much longer to be canonized than he allowed in his novel. The explicit sex detracted from the story.
Father Frank Shore is a Postulator who investigates claims of miracles for the Vatican. In this case it is a devout woman whose death caused a statue of the Virgin Mary to bleed upon and cured a girl with terminal lupus. The woman has been nominated for sainthood but needs a third verified miracle to qualify. He is sent to investigate a possible miracle in 1944 when an Allied bombing raid causes a tiny girl to pray for and receive deliverance.
Father Shore has never found a miracle and is known as the Miracle Killer for debunking false claims of miracles. He is having a crisis of faith which is exacerbated when he meets the candidates daughter, a non believer and critic of her mother who abandoned her as a ten to do God's work. A great story..
This is a wonderful book (and the movie that was made, based upon the novel is a must-see). The characterization is wonderful and the story is magical. The author writes it so well, the reader gets lost in the story. I think it's a definite 'good read'. :)
The basis of an excellent movie starring Ed Harris and Anne Heche. The book is different but wonderful in its own way, about the roles of faith and love and self-doubt in our lives.