The Hack

by Wilfrid Sheed

Book by Sheed, Wilfrid

Genres: Novels, Fiction, Catholic

279 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Sheed was born in London to Francis "Frank" Sheed and Mary "Maisie" Ward, prominent Roman Catholic publishers (Sheed & Ward) in the United Kingdom and the United States during the mid-20th century. Wilfrid Sheed spent his childhood in both England and the United States before attending Downside School and Lincoln College, Oxford where he earned BA (1954) and MA (1957) degrees.

Reviews

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this mannered novel Sheed explores the loneliness of a religious periodical writer whose crisis of faith scuppers his role as breadwinner in a typical 1950s household of five-kids-and-a-Betty. The prose is elegant, but the plot thinner than the line-up at a Kate Moss lookalike convention, and the characters are drearily lifelike. Multiple POVs adds a little variety to the convention, and the prose is witty and smirk-making most of the time. The Hack is an interesting novel about a writer whose work has been bent by the homilies of the church, ruining his chances for any serious literary art, and about how one person’s faith galvanises his friends and family. The protagonist’s nervous breakdown before Xmas is not as convincing as the scenes with the old college mates or the disapproving backward mothers. But Sheed is certainly worth unBURYing and further unearthings will follow.

[John · Rating 2 out of 5]

This from the son of two once-prominent lay preachers and Catholic publishers conveys the tedium of mid-century Church life in a boring New Jersey suburb. Bert Flax tries to revive his flagging faith, but its conviction has faded. He can't whip up the "froth" to fund his career as a producer of pious poems and devotional talks. His wife, Betty, meanwhile wonders if her husband's spiritual allegiance may inspire her secular but drab mentality. Their perspectives alternate in this relentlessly downbeat plot.

As with his Office Politics, recently reprinted and reviewed by me, Sheed's not much at sustaining any momentum. His screenplay-like chapters stay brief, barely gaining traction, before their barbed dialogue, grim tone, self-loathing interior monologues, and dismal atmosphere turn to yet another scene of similar mood. It makes for a staccato and jittery rhythm which expressed unease, but doesn't deliver a steady dramatization of the sour Flax couple's predicament as they flounder, both skeptics.

Dispiriting in the truest sense. I guess it's who you knew back then, when it comes to landing a book deal. Sheed's mordant, self-loathing stock in the literary trade seems to have fueled his fiction, while his day job found him laboring at the belles-lettres and commissions for journalism of the kinds of pecking away his novels kept mocking. It's telling how little of his oeuvre stayed in print afterwards.

And how can you convincingly portray the writer's block of a lapsed communicant without excerpting what Bert's churned out since a teen for the lumpenproletariat faithful supplicants? If you're aiming at showing us the malaise of a fallen-away congregant after his mundane trade falters, then integrate some choice examples of his sentimental Marian verses or his anodyne essays on his favorite saint.

So the pacing plods. I expected a deeper evocation of the malaise akin to J.F. Powers, Walker Percy, or Edwin O'Connor, all of whom depicted materialism, compromises, and nuances of a post- immigrant Church as its members left the slums after WWII and its clergy faced adapting to contemporary and craven American culture. While Sheed attempts to show Father Chubb, Betty's fiercely anti-Catholic mother, and her daughter's weary churning out a baby a year in rounded terms, Bert's persistently pessimistic outlook never eases up, making him a difficult protagonist to warm to in a chilly narrative which although possibly based on intimate experience for Sheed, nevertheless can't shake its gloom.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

This Satirical novel shows the danger of one’s faith being more about public identity and less about relationship. I enjoyed it although the stream of consciousness style is hard to follow in some places.

The author’s parents were well-known authors and apologists. I can’t help but wonder how much the author drew from his family of origin. ... one of his father’s best known books is _Theology and Sanity_ and, in _The Hack_, it is noted repeatedly that the protagonist seems “so very sane,” even as he heads toward a nervous breakdown.

[Christopher Fulbright · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book because of its premise. It sounded like something I could relate to on a lot of levels. The first part of the book was really good. But when the POV shifted to the wife in the middle, it lost me. Again, I don't want to pan this book because I liked the premise, but it went on too long for the idea in my opinion. It needed more plot to move things along. Still, this was written well enough I would try a different book by him.

[Sam Schulman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even more depressing - but more memorable - than Max Jamison, the story of a professional writer of Catholic parish newsletters in the 50s and HIS hell. Not to be forgotten portrait of a gray man - and a vivid portrait of the Catholic intellectual circa 1955 - a now extinct species much fancied by young goy-chasers of the mid-twentieth century.

[Corey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Witty and smart.