Chasing Grace: A Novel of Odd Redemption

by Carol Costello

CHASING GRACE is a raw, funny look at spiritual coming of age, at unconventional ways to heal deep emotional wounds, and at finding greater purpose in surprising places despite desperate odds. Cathy Callahan runs away at age ten to escape her mother’s sexual and emotional abuse and to find God, whom she first met in a Chicago public park when she was six. The next thirty years are a series of funny, brutal, and uplifting adventures that pit her humor and strength against the shame and rage churning within her. Cathy is smart, funny, and strong, but also reckless, blind to grey areas, and trying to outrun demons she does not understand and will not face. She has few handrails in life in the form of family, traditional religion, or social structures, but she gives everything she has to her quest for redemption and the sacred. Even when her efforts go terribly wrong, we feel her courage, humor, and grit. She searches for love, healing, and wholeness in all the wrong places as she runs across the country from Chicago to San Francisco—in the Catholic Church’s byzantine, yoyo system of indulgences and salvation; in a bakery cum brothel run by Mollie, the brassy older woman who “adopts” her; with a good-looking, half-naked guru hawking “I AM Oneness” who uses her to build his enlightenment business and gets her pregnant; with Spirit in the High Rockies and a cowboy who beats her up until she shoots him; and finally, in too much Scotch. She pulls herself out of an alcoholic bottom in a Reno alley and returns to ground zero, her mother in Chicago. There she finds unexpected grace in the last place she thinks to look.

280 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2011

Reviews

[Ed Armstrong · Rating 5 out of 5]

Before I say anything about this novel i will say that the author and I became acquainted as very young children living on the street mentioned in her book (her street number was221 as mentioned, mine was 201 and the name of the street was sort of what she called it). I will also say we went to the same Catholic grade school (in Elmhurst, IL and her descriptions of the events that occurred were true to the best of my recollection. She and I never had the same nun though. Ok now the book. Costello described her story as one about "coming of age" and that it was. I certainly cannot say that the story (other than the portions talking about Immaculate Conception School) were autobiographical and I really hope they weren't. The author describes an ordeal that I can best describe by using one of my daughter's favorite words: Jarring. I read the book in two days, maybe a little more and after following her from the Chicago area all the way out to California, I really was exhausted! The story line was entertaining and I would say at least partially believable, not that a work of fiction should be believable. I only use that term as the author has described her work as one depicting a young woman growing up from a naive young gir, apparently abused by her mother and somewhat ignored by her father who seemed to be more interested in practicing law and avoiding her mother. I've recommended the book to friends and family members as it was entertaining but I must say I was intrigued by the fact that our lives (the author's and mine) crossed so many years ago. Read it, you will enjoy it.

[judy-b. judy-b. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cathy Callahan caught me with her distinctive voice, and I settled in to learn her story. She narrates her story with wit and tenderness, as the moment demands, never shying away from the difficult, and also never wallowing in the devastation. And perhaps that is how she survives: not because of any of the spiritual salves she attempts to apply to get herself through the considerable and numerous hardships she endures, but because she is determined to be herself (once she figures out who she is) and find her own honest way of being. I loved reading this book and flew through it.

My only critique is that I wish the book had a more interesting cover, one that better depicted Cathy's wonderful personality and the journey that she makes.

[C.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A page-turner! Carol Costello's delicate touch with some potentially heavy material kept me rooting for her young protagonist from start to finish. Can a girl so young, smart, and baffled by the bizarre habits of most adults manage to find the resolution she so desperately seeks? I laughed, cried, and enjoyed every minute of Cathy Callahan's wide-ranging adventures.