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Fun With Nuns...and Other Horror Stories
1960: Fifth grade, in a Catholic school in a blue-collar area of Western PA. There are bewildering rules everywhere for Italian-American ten-year-old Enzo—at school, at church, at home—almost all of which involve not talking, his Achilles’ heel. It is the dawn of a new era, with the old one stubbornly clinging on. There are Latin Masses, confessionals, and penance. There is The Ed Sullivan Show and Gunsmoke. At home is a loutish big brother and a mean little grandfather. Thanks be to God, there is spaghetti. And there are nuns, of the (literally) old-school variety, armed with erasers, clickers, and rulers to keep their charges in line.
Many years later, Enzo reunites with a school friend whose life has been forever altered by a childhood tragedy. This irreverent and humorous fictional work is a look back at this singular time and place, without the rose-colored lenses.
Many years later, Enzo reunites with a school friend whose life has been forever altered by a childhood tragedy. This irreverent and humorous fictional work is a look back at this singular time and place, without the rose-colored lenses.
72 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 15, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 3, 2026
Despite it's humorous title the book isn't funny. Oh there is a few humorous moments(read sentences) but that's it. There is a tragic story of his best friend growing up killing his abusive stepmother which was manslaughter (his birth mother passed away) and a wierd final chapter that is nothing but recipes he learned to do for himself later in life. Expected much more from the book because of the title. I was looking forward to reminiscing since I went to Catholic grade school and had nuns for teachers. The book was a little off but definitely not funny.
January 23, 2025
True story: when I was a fifth-grade student in Catholic school, I wrote a comic book entitled “Fun with Nuns.” I'm happy to yield that title to A. J. Caliendo, whose homonymous novella is far superior.
Enzo Scuro, the first-person narrator, begins by reflecting upon the “longest-lasting, happiest, saddest, most fulfilling and most frustrating relationship of my life,” with his childhood friend, Billy Tildon. In the opening scene, he is waiting to meet Billy for the first time in thirty years. Catholic schoolboys in the 1960s, Billy and Enzo were an unlikely pair—Billy shy and thoughtful, Enzo glib but insecure; both were misfits in different ways, such that they complemented each other. The pair bonded for mutual support and vowed to always be there for each other—until, one day, without a word or any explanation, Billy disappeared.
This central dynamic to the plot is laid out in the first two chapters, then not revisited again until the final chapter. In between are five short chapters containing random reminiscences about growing up Catholic in an Italian-American family. As the title suggests, there are various encounters with nuns, including some that are funny, but also kind of scary, like when one nun caught a lad smoking:
“Sister Alberta had rolled up her sleeve, with various nunly things dangling from the rolled-up cuff, said to Derek, “This is your last warning,” and sucker-punched him, his head banging hard against the church windows as he slid down the wall to the floor like a barroom brawl in a Western.”
Ouch. Readers, like me, who experienced this distinctive kind of discipline will relate to the anecdote with a survivor’s droll sense of nostalgia. Others with more contemporary sensibilities about how to handle misbehaving juveniles may be baffled by how anybody could recall such events with comic fondness.
As a literary work, “Fun with Nuns” has flaws. By his own admission, the first-person narrator rambles. The primary focus on Enzo and Billy’s unusual relationship strays to the point of vanishing in the middle of the story. In the end, when the full, awful circumstances of Billy’s disappearance are revealed, it comes as a jarring departure from the book’s otherwise playful tone.
However, the author’s vivid, whimsical anecdotes will resonate with readers, like me, who grew up in the same tribe. “Fun with Nuns” was clearly a labor of love, and a worthy fictionalization of a memoir.
Enzo Scuro, the first-person narrator, begins by reflecting upon the “longest-lasting, happiest, saddest, most fulfilling and most frustrating relationship of my life,” with his childhood friend, Billy Tildon. In the opening scene, he is waiting to meet Billy for the first time in thirty years. Catholic schoolboys in the 1960s, Billy and Enzo were an unlikely pair—Billy shy and thoughtful, Enzo glib but insecure; both were misfits in different ways, such that they complemented each other. The pair bonded for mutual support and vowed to always be there for each other—until, one day, without a word or any explanation, Billy disappeared.
This central dynamic to the plot is laid out in the first two chapters, then not revisited again until the final chapter. In between are five short chapters containing random reminiscences about growing up Catholic in an Italian-American family. As the title suggests, there are various encounters with nuns, including some that are funny, but also kind of scary, like when one nun caught a lad smoking:
“Sister Alberta had rolled up her sleeve, with various nunly things dangling from the rolled-up cuff, said to Derek, “This is your last warning,” and sucker-punched him, his head banging hard against the church windows as he slid down the wall to the floor like a barroom brawl in a Western.”
Ouch. Readers, like me, who experienced this distinctive kind of discipline will relate to the anecdote with a survivor’s droll sense of nostalgia. Others with more contemporary sensibilities about how to handle misbehaving juveniles may be baffled by how anybody could recall such events with comic fondness.
As a literary work, “Fun with Nuns” has flaws. By his own admission, the first-person narrator rambles. The primary focus on Enzo and Billy’s unusual relationship strays to the point of vanishing in the middle of the story. In the end, when the full, awful circumstances of Billy’s disappearance are revealed, it comes as a jarring departure from the book’s otherwise playful tone.
However, the author’s vivid, whimsical anecdotes will resonate with readers, like me, who grew up in the same tribe. “Fun with Nuns” was clearly a labor of love, and a worthy fictionalization of a memoir.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews