Second Spring
A Love Story
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
In the late 1970s, Chucky O'Malley faces a midlife crisis as he searches for renewal and hope amidst a nation reeling from Vietnam and Watergate.
Father Andrew M. Greeley continues his chronicles of the O'Malleys, a resourceful Irish-American family caught up in modern American history. In Second Spring, Charles "Chucky" O'Malley approaches fifty in 1978, struggling with disillusionment and depression despite a loving wife and thriving photography career.
As Chucky travels from the Vatican, where a new pope is to be selected, to Jimmy Carter's White House, where the president seeks to cure the nation's malaise, he searches for a way to renew his weary spirit. With the loving support of his family, especially his irrepressible wife Rosemarie, Chucky strives to rediscover his lost optimism in time for a second spring.
The fifth novel in the O'Malley saga, following A Midwinter's Tale, Younger than Springtime, A Christmas Wedding, and September Song, Second Spring continues to delight readers with its blend of family, faith, and history.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Greeley s irrepressible and fiercely liberal O Malley family carries on lustily in this sixth chronicle of their adventures. Charles (usually Chuck, often Chucky, and even Chucky Ducky, none of which names he objects to) is a former foreign ambassador under Jack Kennedy, a Ph.D. in economics and a world-famous photographer. Rosemarie, his wife, is a recovered alcoholic, now a successful New Yorker writer, but more important to her, a mom and grandma. Trading chapters, they describe their busy life in Rome in the late 1970s, where Chuck s role is to photograph the new pope. In 1978, there were three popes: Paul VI died; his successor, John Paul I, also expired, after only a brief period; and John Paul II, the first non-Italian pope in centuries, was elected. Greeley s knowledge of the intrigues and suspense behind the elections produces a graphic firsthand account (he is the author of the nonfiction book The Making of the Popes 1978). After the election, Chuck s career as a photographer (he refers to himself modestly as a fast-talking punk from the West Side of Chicago who takes pictures ) comes to the fore, as the Art Institute gives him a major show. The show is a success (despite or because of the scandal caused by an innocently revealing photo of Rosemarie), but Chuck is assailed by self-doubt, then nearly dies of pneumonia. In a sentimental but poignant scene, a serene, perhaps heavenly lady visits Chuck and reassures him that he is a good man. This is more comfort food for Catholics, though newcomers to the series may be taken aback by Chuck and Rosemarie s mildly explicit lovemaking.