The Confessions of Frances Godwin
-
- $18.99
-
- $18.99
Publisher Description
The Confessions of Frances Godwin is the fictional memoir of a retired high school Latin teacher looking back on a life of trying to do her best amidst transgressions-starting with her affair with Paul, whom she later marries. Now that Paul is dead and she's retired, Frances Godwin thinks her story is over-but of course the rest of her life is full of surprises, including the truly shocking turn of events that occurs when she takes matters into her own hands after her daughter Stella's husband grows increasingly abusive. And though she is not a particularly pious person, in the aftermath of her actions, God begins speaking to her. Theirs is a deliciously antagonistic relationship that will compel both believers and nonbelievers alike.
From a small town in the Midwest to the Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rome, The Confessions of Frances Godwin touches on the great questions of human existence: Is there something "out there" that takes an interest in us? Or is the universe ultimately indifferent?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In Hellenga's (The Sixteen Pleasures) latest novel, a Latin scholar on the precipice of old age wistfully recounts her life beginning in 1963, the year she and her husband "joined our bodies if not our souls." Francis Godwin, a lapsed Catholic and graduating senior at Knox College in Illinois (where Hellenga has taught since 1968), met Paul at a party in celebration of Shakespeare's birthday. "Paul and I began a torrid affair at least that's how I thought of it at the time, though torrid,' from Latin torridus, meaning parched or scorched, is perhaps not the right word." Their marriage was a meeting of the minds, but also a pairing of opposites: "He loved Homer, I loved Vergil; he turned to Plato for his metaphysics, I turned to Lucretius." In the last year of Paul's life, their grown daughter Stella's reprobate husband, Jimmy, wreaks havoc on their quiet lives, triggering a primal virulence within Francis unknown even to herself. Reeling from the aftershock of her impulsivity, which goes unpunished, she must reevaluate herself and her faith. The minor characters aren't as strong as Francis, but Hellenga's feisty and learned narrator, who travels from the Casa di Giulietta in Verona to TruckStopUSA in Ottawa, is an entertaining guide.
