Brief Description
As the last light of All-Hallows' Eve falls on a small town at the tip of Cape Cod, Father Manuel Furtado begins his nightly ritual of gin and pills, prayer, and hours spent writing feverishly in his ledger. With the deep luxury of the chemicals in his body, he copies passages from Saint Augustine and Martin Heidegger, disciplined in his desire to flesh out his ever-building demons.
But, unlike his usual uninterrupted reflection, this night there is a crash, sudden enough to pull Father Manny from the rectory and toward his church, Our Lady of Fatima. He finds a man there -- his childhood friend Sarafino, whom he has not seen in decades -- frail with illness and desperate to tell the priest about his recurring visits from the Virgin Mary. Despite Father Manny's grave doubts about Sarafino and his visions, he lets his old friend into his home and his life, and this single act ignites a series of events that challenge the faith of this fishing village, the parish, and of Father Manny himself.
Striking and lovingly detailed, "Stealing Fatima" is the story of a priest's search for redemption in a town where, even in these modern times, the divine is possible.
Learn More about the Book
As the last light of All-Hallows' Eve falls on a small town at the tip of Cape Cod, Father Manuel Furtado begins his nightly ritual of gin, pills, prayer, and hours spent writing feverishly in his ledger. With the deep luxury of the chemicals in his body, he copies passages from Saint Augustine and Martin Heidegger, disciplined in his desire to flesh out his ever-building demons. But, unlike his usual uninterrupted reflection, this night there is a crash, sudden enough to pull Father Manny from the rectory and toward his church, Our Lady of Fatima. He finds a man there--his childhood friend Sarafino, whom he has not seen in decades--frail with illness and desperate to tell the priest about his recurring visits from the Virgin Mary. Despite Father Manny's grave doubts about Sarafino and his visions, he lets his old friend into his home and his life, and this single act ignites a series of events that challenge the faith of this fishing village, the parish, and Father Manny himself. Striking and lovingly detailed, Stealing Fatima is the story of a priest's search for redemption in a town where, even in these modern times, the divine is possible.
Review Quotes
1. "A wounded healer navigates the uneasy intersections of faith, doubt, and action in this quietly brilliant novel about the mysteries of belief. Tormented by scandal and various addictions, Father Manuel Furtado struggles to heal himself and care for his church, Our Lady of Fatima. With the help of both blood and fictive kin, Furtado is able to put aside his personal demons and minister to the closely knit community to which he's been assigned. The return of a presumed-dead childhood friend, however, leads to a series of events that plunge Furtado, and the town, deeper into its long, dark night of the soul. Will the recovery of a long-lost statue bring grace and healing? Or is the past better left unburied? Readers who enjoy complex characterization will appreciate Father Furtado's complex psychological makeup and admire Gaspar's equally conflicted secondary characters. VERDICT Gaspar, an award-winning poet and novelist ("Leaving Pico"), triumphs again with his unflinching portrait of doubt and devotion, demonstrating with skill and grace how the two forces simultaneously torment and uplift Fatima's parishioners." --"Library Journal"
"Graham Greene would likely recognize the unhappy priest who emerges in the opening pages of this improbable novel: bereft of faith in church doctrine and sustained only by gin and fraudulently acquired painkillers, Manuel Furtado nightly explores the dark places in his own soul and in the lives of his hard- pressed congregation through wide-ranging meditations recorded in a personal ledger. But one night Furtado's dark ruminations are interrupted by the reappearance of Sarafino--a long-lost boyhood friend, now dying from AIDS and in flight from an armed-robbery warrant. The priest's life veers in directions even Greene could not have imagined. In a multilayered narrative rich in psychological insight, Gaspar follows his protagonist as he ministers to his distressed friend, so exposing unresolved conflicts in his own life. A numbe
