Pagan Babies
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
From the fleeting optimism of Kennedy’s Camelot to the fearsome specter of the age of AIDS, this impressive, powerfully written debut novel follows the lives of two young people and their stormy relationship that parallels the moral confusion of America over the next thirty years.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This first novel by short-story writer Johnson ( A Friendly Deceit ) regrettably exhibits some of the classic flaws of a debut work: an episodic ``and then . . . and then'' style; telling more than showing (i.e., relentless over-explanation); lack of clear plot development; and an implausible ending. The two main characters, Janice Rungren and Clifford Bannon, meet as third-graders at the Catholic school within Sacred Heart parish in Vyler, a small Texas city, in the 1960s; Janice is the flirt, Clifford the brooding artiste. The accoutrements and environment of the Church are rendered as caricatures: stigmata, First Communion, even the ``pagan babies'' of the book's title--children of undeveloped countries visited by Maryknoll missionaries. Although these religious trappings and customs are amusing or fascinating at times, they're no substitute for a story line. Mental illness, death, personal tragedy, middle-class angst and '60s drug stupor all factor in the plot, though not to advantage. Jancie and Clifford move beyond friendship to intimacy before parting ways; preposterously, they wind up in Atlanta together as adults, she husband-hunting, he more openly gay. Assiduous editing could have rendered both the gay and heterosexual characters more believable. Even the dialogue rings hollow and contrived.
