![]() Not surprisingly, Frank is drawn more strongly to the reservation church, which his bishop warns him is edging toward extinction. He finds himself serving not one but two parishes, the first an economically viable church in his hometown of Linden Falls, the second a virtuallyĭefunct church with an exploding stove and squirrels in its belfry on the Indian reservation across the lake. He is less ideally suited and which is driving him, literally, to drink. But Frank is forced by the closing of his beloved Aquinas Academy (where he had acted as headmaster and baseball coach) into parish work, for which ![]() Hassler's protagonists, Frank Healy is a born teacher. Voice within that says, repeatedly, ''She's the one,'' a voice he can never dispel. Indeed, the ''call'' Frank hears most clearly throughout the novel, the one he ignores so that he can become a priest, is the Resulting conflict involves not the easy, cliched duality of man's spiritual and earthly nature but rather a conflict between a rewarding faith that offers a way of living in the real world (not escaping from it) andĪ woman who heals Frank Healy's spirit even as she tempts his flesh. In fact, its hero, Father Frank Healy, has two great loves - the Roman Catholic Church and Libby Girard, whom he first meets when both are in their teens. Hassler hasn't managed his customary illusion of effortlessness. It's his longest and, in some respects, his most ambitious novel,īut it's also a book that, for all its virtues, reveals its author's struggles. Surprising if ''North of Hope,'' his brooding, meditative new novel, is the one that makes him the household name he deserves to be. Part of Jon Hassler's brilliance has always been his ability to achieve the depth of real literature through such sure-handed, no-gimmicks, honest language that the result appears effortless. Is one of those writers who make storytelling look so easy that the severe guardians of contemporary literature may be suspicious. Often these are the best books - too imaginative and well written to fit genre formulas, too accessible to be seen as ''literary'' in the strict Henry James/William Faulkner sense. Hassler's novels were of ''specialized interest,'' a phrase used in the business to describe books that publishers don't know how to market. The conventional wisdom seems to have been that Mr. Novels are all set in northern Minnesota, branding him a ''regional'' writer. Until recently, however, he seems to have been published halfheartedly. That have earned glowing reviews and a loyal, fervent following among those fortunate enough to have discovered his work. ![]() Ince 1977, with the publication of ''Staggerford,'' Jon Hassler has given us a series of wonderful novels OctoThe Loves of His Life By RICHARD RUSSO
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