Clerical Errors

by Alan Isler

Aside from his blatant lack of piety -- and the fact that he's Jewish -- Father Edmond Music could have been a model priest. Now, entrenched at an English estate with a vast library, he would rather pursue a decades-old liaison with his housekeeper than crack down on his assistant's dial-a-confession phone ministry, or, more important, investigate the whereabouts of a rare Shakespeare text gone missing on his watch.Then, out of nowhere, penance comes due. His car is found totaled (possibly by Vatican hit men), his annoying archrival of the cloth is looking to nail him as a thief, and the once-passionate housekeeper is lapsing into religious fervor. With his forty-year idyll falling apart, Edmond can no longer ignore the danger of the present, or the echoes of his buried past.National Jewish Book Award-winning author Alan Isler delivers a hilarious and touching literary homily, confirming his unique gift for mingling comedy and tragedy in this deeply moving exploration of faith, love, and identity.

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[Michael Tenerowicz · Rating 3 out of 5]

OK. This was billed as a comedy. A Jewish priest walks into a bar... pah-dum-dum. The premise sounded pretty funny and his clerical job was to be the curator of some rare books dedicated to the church. Dedicated by his mistress. This has promise. THEN... The Catholic section of the book reared its ugly head and guilt dripped off every page. Some were driven insane, some committed suicide, while others just ran away. By the end of the book this comedy was not very well disguised as a tragedy. All the main characters met their ignominious ends. Great laughs.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Sipping a Calvados in a bar in the rue de Malengin and reading an English newspaper left on the seat by its previous occupant, I discovered to my surprise that I had just died.” Now there’s an opening sentence bound to draw the reader in. And yet a few pages in, I lost interest. Our narrator, Father Edmond Music, offers smatterings of French and Latin and frequent side trips into history and religion that I didn’t enjoy at first, but I came back to this book and, once I relaxed into the author’s style, which reminds me a bit of Jose Saramago, I realized this was good stuff. What beautiful old-fashioned sentences, but the story is intriguing, too. Fr. Music came from a Jewish family. His parents forced him to convert to Catholicism to escape the Nazis during WWII. Years later, although he is a priest, he still has doubts about the Catholic faith. He also plays loose with his vows, especially chastity. His job is director of a rare books library in England. When one of those books disappears under suspicious circumstances, he stands to lose his job and his reputation. Complications ensue. I hated to finish this book. To potential readers, I say, take a deep breath and ride with it; it gets good.

[Roman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Такая вудиалленовщина

[Ian Robb]

Father Edmund Music could have been a model priest except he is jewish. He was converted to Christianity to save his life during the 2nd world war. Early on in his priesthood he had an affair with Kiki, a rich widow who left him an estate. He then had an affair with his housekeeper, Maude. She sold one of the books from the Beale library to a jewish bookseller and this was later discovered by another priest, Fred Twombey who was determined to see Edmund accept the blame. It is a good book and I will something else by Isler.

[Marvin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I gave up on this when it hadn't captured my interest after 100 pages. It was about a very unappealing character, a Jew orphaned by WWII who became a cynical, sexually active Catholic priest w/o a parish.