By Rege Behe
Pittsburgh Tribune-review
May 22, 2011
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/ae/books/s_738155.html
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| Jennifer Haigh |
Shortly after Jennifer Haigh moved to Boston in 2002, details about the scandal that rocked the Diocese of Boston began to emerge. Every day brought reports of priests accused of child molestation.
As a Catholic, Haigh, a native of Barnesboro in Cambria County, was astonished by the news; as a writer, she was intrigued.
"I thought, this is a story that deserved to be told, and needed to be told," says Haigh, who attended Catholic grade school and high school. "I was horrified by it, as everybody was. But I wasn't ready to write about it; it was really paralyzing. It took me awhile to figure out how to write the story. But it did occur to me I was going to have to write about it at some point.
"Faith" is Haigh's fourth novel, and arguably her most accomplished work. It is certainly a book that, given the subject matter, is likely to draw attention from those not familiar with her writing.
The story initially seems straightforward: Art Breen, who decided at the age of 14 he wanted to be a priest, has become a confidante for many in his Boston parish. Women inevitably are drawn to Father Art, and when he helps a young, single mother with her child, it's seen as an act of kindness.
Until he's accused of abusing the child.
Haigh acknowledges she was delving into territory that is divisive and controversial, but tried to put that out of her mind as she wrote. She, instead, concentrated on building the story from the routines priests follow every day, using Paul Dinter's book, "Another Side of the Altar," as a reference.
"For me, writing this book was an exercise in compassion," Haigh says. "I have fond memories of priests, but I never gave too much thought to what their daily lives were like, or the kind of preparation or training they do to live this very extraordinary life. We ask a lot of these men, really; we ask them to do very difficult things, to live in a very isolated condition, and I thought about what prepares a young man to take this on."
"Faith" is far from an idealistic portrait of priesthood. Haigh takes great pains to draw Father Art and his fellow priests as ordinary men, and, sometimes, sinners. Art's introduction to the priesthood is particularly daunting because the old guard goes out of its way to make him feel uncomfortable.
Nor is Art immune to temptations and vices; he has a enormous weakness for cigarettes.
"I wanted to look at priests with empathy, to see the whole picture," Haigh says. "I didn't want to demonize Art, but he is not a heroic character, either. He has glaring weaknesses. He's ill-equipped, at times, to help the people in those parishes. ... There's a passage where Art's hearing a confession, and knows nothing at all about the personal things he is supposed to be advising them about."
Art's half-sister, Sheila, tells most of the story, and one of the elements that emerges from "Faith" is how the families of priests are affected when sordid accusations are leveled. Sheila, her brother, Mike, and her mother deal with their brother's troubles with disbelief, defiance and, as the title of the book indicates, faith.
"It was something I'd always known but until recently forgotten: that faith is a decision," Haigh writes in Sheila's voice. "In its most basic form, it is a choice."
Haigh didn't show her story to anyone, not her editor nor her family, until it was completed. While she does that with every novel, with "Faith" she was very careful because of the subject matter.
But what of the reading public? Is there an appetite for a book on the subject, no matter how tactfully done?
Haigh can only hope that readers have the same reaction as her family.
"When the book was finished, I showed it to (her mother) and my brother," she says. "They were both very supportive, and very taken with the story. I suppose the handling of it was not off-putting to them. Maybe if I had told them about it in the beginning, they might have had a very different reaction. But I wanted them to see it for what it is without commentary. I didn't want to prejudice them one way or another; I wanted to get an honest reaction when it was finished."
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