All for Now
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- $4.99
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
Brother Stephen dies. That's when things get complicated. Is Stephen's death his wake-up call? That's one theory. Soon he is behind the wheel of a Prius, listening to himself being interviewed on NPR. His afterlife feels a lot like high school, he tells Terry, and she asks about those lawsuits filed by students who claimed to have been molested by pedophile Brothers. As an administrator of his Roman Catholic religious order, he was caught in the middle of all these heartbreaking cases. In fact, the lawsuit he was dealing with the moment he died strikes close to home. He once knew the plaintiff-knew her very well. Brother Stephen is a determined sort, and spends his afterlife solving a terrible mystery or two or three about the survivor, about the accused, and about himself.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Di Prisco (Sun City) takes a bold and unexpectedly amusing look at the unfortunately joined subjects of religion and pedophilia. When Brother Stephen, an administrator of a Roman Catholic religious teaching order dealing with lawsuits from former students who claimed to have been molested by his brothers, suddenly dies, he finds himself in the afterlife driving a Prius in Northern California as an NPR interview of himself plays on the radio. Needless to say, he's shocked and confused, but he discovers that this is only the beginning of the oddities he will soon encounter. He returns to an amorphous afterlife version of his former high school, where, in a nod to Orwell, all doors lead to "Room 101," and one of them holds his old girlfriend Shannon, now a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits. The dreamlike events that ensue with not only Shannon but also former mentor Brother Charlie and a student Brother Stephen taught 30 years ago forces Stephen to confront truths that he would rather have left unexamined. Though Di Prisco takes a heartbreaking look at the scars left by pedophilia, and some readers will surely feel anger at the sins, the tale unfolds, bravely, with much humor thanks to Brother Stephen's bemused narration.
