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Foreword Reviews Gold Medal in Humor & Finalist in Religious Books. EVVY Gold in Humor & Silver in Religion and Spirituality. Bronze winner of an Illumination Award in Catholic books (Pope Francis won the Gold!). ELit Bronze in Humor. What a combination! Dodging Satan is a humorous coming-of-age story. Bridget Flagherty, a student at St. Michael's Catholic school outside Boston in the 60s-70s, takes refuge in wacky misunderstandings of Bible Stories and Catholic beliefs to avoid problems in her Irish/Italian family life. Her musings on sadistic nuns, domestic violence, emerging sexuality, and God the Father's romantic life will delight readers. Bridget creates glorious supernatural worlds-with exorcisms, bird relics, Virgin Martyrs, time travel, Biblical plagues, even the 'holy' in holy water-to cope with a family where leather handbags and even garlic can cause explosions. An avid Bible reader who innocently believes everything the nuns tell her, Bridget's saints, martyrs, and bony Christs become alive and audible within her. While the nuns chide her sinful 'mathematical pride' and slow eating habits, God answers her prayers instantly by day, but the devil visits nightly in the dark. Scenes run the gamut from laugh-out-loud Catholic brainwashing of children, to heart-wrenching abuse, to riveting teenage excursions toward sex. Young Bridget tries to make sense of a world of raging men and domestically subjugated women and carve a future for herself, wrestling with how God and men treat women. Her Italian female relatives-glamorous Santa Anna, black-and-blue Aunt Maria, sophisticated Eleanor with a New York 'Fellini pageboy'-offer sensual alternatives to the repression of her immediate family. She prays fervently that "despite God's bizarre treatment of married women... some [girls] might still discover ways to have a great time without being a nun." Dodging Satan is the flip-side of l'Histoire d'une Ame by Saint Therese of Lisieux authored by a twentieth century American girl chomping on a blue-gum cigar while she talks to a confidant about God and sex.
Kathleen Zamboni McCormick is a
professor of literature and writing at Purchase College
State University of New York. Her creative and academic
writings are widely recognized. Her fiction has been
published in Calyx, The Dirty Goat, Fugue, Italian
Americana, Northwest Review, Kestrel as well as many others.
Foreword Reviews Gold Medal in Humor & Finalist in Religious Books. EVVY Gold in Humor & Silver in Religion and Spirituality. Bronze winner of an Illumination Award in Catholic books (Pope Francis won the Gold!). ELit Bronze in Humor. What a combination! Dodging Satan is a humorous coming-of-age story. Bridget Flagherty, a student at St. Michael's Catholic school outside Boston in the 60s-70s, takes refuge in wacky misunderstandings of Bible Stories and Catholic beliefs to avoid problems in her Irish/Italian family life. Her musings on sadistic nuns, domestic violence, emerging sexuality, and God the Father's romantic life will delight readers. Bridget creates glorious supernatural worlds-with exorcisms, bird relics, Virgin Martyrs, time travel, Biblical plagues, even the 'holy' in holy water-to cope with a family where leather handbags and even garlic can cause explosions. An avid Bible reader who innocently believes everything the nuns tell her, Bridget's saints, martyrs, and bony Christs become alive and audible within her. While the nuns chide her sinful 'mathematical pride' and slow eating habits, God answers her prayers instantly by day, but the devil visits nightly in the dark. Scenes run the gamut from laugh-out-loud Catholic brainwashing of children, to heart-wrenching abuse, to riveting teenage excursions toward sex. Young Bridget tries to make sense of a world of raging men and domestically subjugated women and carve a future for herself, wrestling with how God and men treat women. Her Italian female relatives-glamorous Santa Anna, black-and-blue Aunt Maria, sophisticated Eleanor with a New York 'Fellini pageboy'-offer sensual alternatives to the repression of her immediate family. She prays fervently that "despite God's bizarre treatment of married women... some [girls] might still discover ways to have a great time without being a nun." Dodging Satan is the flip-side of l'Histoire d'une Ame by Saint Therese of Lisieux authored by a twentieth century American girl chomping on a blue-gum cigar while she talks to a confidant about God and sex.
Kathleen Zamboni McCormick is a
professor of literature and writing at Purchase College
State University of New York. Her creative and academic
writings are widely recognized. Her fiction has been
published in Calyx, The Dirty Goat, Fugue, Italian
Americana, Northwest Review, Kestrel as well as many others.
Gold and Silver EVVY winner! First Place in Religion and Spirituality and Second Place winner in Humor. Bronze winner of an Illumination Award in Catholic books (Pope Francis won the Gold!). Now a Foreword Review finalist.A girl, roiled by emergent sexuality, conflicting emotions toward parents, an extended family of abusive men and unhappy women: the protagonist in this playful but gripping tale draws on a hilarious mishmash of Catholic popular culture, creating outrageous cosmic narratives to make sense of it all. Catholics will recognize it; those who didn't have access to the Catholic Imagination while growing up will be jealous. Michael P. Carroll, Madonnas that Maim; Catholic Cults and Devotions; The Cult of the Virgin Mary A coming of age feminist consciousness story that navigates gender in the contexts of domestic and celestial hierarchies. In Bridget's world, frightening and glorious relationships exist between phosphorous and holiness, virgins and bicycles, crucifixes and spices, exorcism and mascara. Zamboni-McCormick renders scenes that run the gamut from laugh-out-loud Catholic brainwashing of children, to heart-wrenched witnessing of domestic violence, to riveting teenage excursions toward sex. Annie Rachele Lanzillotto, L is for Lion: an italian bronx butch freedom memoirTender and ruthlessly honest, Kathleen McCormick's beautiful first novel draws us into the world of Italian Irish Catholicism as experienced by its unforgettably wise and desperately innocent girl narrator. There's magic in this world--and while we are charmed by its glow, we are also unsettled again and again by the darkness behind that glow. We follow Bridget with trepidation, captivated by her vulnerability and her fierceness, trusting there's much to learn from her journey. Edvige Giunta, Writing with an Accent; Personal Effects
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