Via negativa / Daniel Hornsby.
Material type:
TextPublisher: New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2020Description: 245 pages ; 20 cmContent type: - text
- unmediated
- volume
- 9780525658474
- 0525658475
| Item type | Home library | Collection | Call number | Materials specified | Status | Date due | Barcode | Item holds | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Adult Book
|
Main Library | Fiction | HORNSBY, DANIEL | Available | 33111010388797 |
Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:
A heartfelt, daring, divinely hilarious debut novel about a priest who embarks on a fateful journey with a pistol in his pocket and an injured coyote in his backseat.
"A beautiful and meditative exploration of shattered faith." --Brit Bennett, author of The Vanishing Half
Father Dan is homeless. Dismissed by his conservative diocese for eccentricity and insubordination, he's made his exile into a kind of pilgrimage, transforming his Toyota Camry into a mobile monk's cell. Like the ascetic religious philosophers he idolizes, he intends to spend his trip in peaceful contemplation. But then he sees a minivan sideswipe a coyote. Unable to suppress his Franciscan impulses, he takes the wild animal in, wrapping its broken leg with an old T-shirt and feeding it Spam with a plastic spoon.
With his unexpected canine companion in the backseat, Dan makes his way west, encountering other offbeat travelers and stopping to take in the occasional roadside novelty (MARTIN'S HOLE TO HELL, WORLD-FAMOUS BOTTOMLESS PIT NEXT EXIT!). But the coyote is far from the only oddity fate has delivered into this churchless priest's care: it has also given him a bone-handled pistol, a box of bullets, and a letter from his estranged friend Paul--a summons of sorts, pulling him forward.
By the time Dan gets to where he's going, he'll be forced to reckon once and for all with the great mistakes of his past, and he will have to decide: is penance better paid with revenge, or with redemption?
"Hornsby's ruminative and God-haunted road trip novel is a hidden gem from this dementedly off-kilter year."
--John Francisconi, Buzzfeed
"This is a Borzoi book" -- Verso title page.
"Father Dan is homeless. Dismissed by the church for eccentricity and insubordination, he's tried to transform his exile into a kind of pilgrimage, to make his Toyota Camry into a mobile monk's cell. But even this master of self-denial - and straight-up denial - knows when he's lying to himself: "I am a retired priest living out of his car. I am a retired priest, kicked out of his rectory and living in his car with a coyote and a bucket he shits in." Ahh, yes: the coyote. Alert to signs and wonders, Dan is swift to stop when he sees a wild coyote get hit by a minivan. The injured animal becomes Dan's unexpected traveling companion as he wends his way west through the heartland of America, nursing the coyote back to health and stopping to take in the occasional roadside attraction (MARTIN'S HOLE TO HELL, WORLD FAMOUS BOTTOMLESS PIT NEXT EXIT!). The farther he travels and the more people he meets, the more he is forced to reckon with a lifetime of regrets: the friendships he let dissolve, his gradual alienation from the church, and his fierce hatred of a particular predatory priest. Father Dan's true quest gradually starts to take shape. But is penance better paid with a journey of redemption . . . or revenge?"--Provided by publisher.