Frank X. Gaspar - Poet, Novelist
LINKS TO
NOVELS:
POETRY:
Stealing Fatima: A Novel
Massachusetts Center for the Book — Stealing Fatima, A MassBook of the Year in Fiction.
Booklist, starred review — 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 number of these conflicts cluster around his involvement—decades earlier—in the impious theft of
a sacred image of Our Lady of Fatima, an image embodying church teachings that Furtado cannot accept.
Furtado’s perplexities over these teachings grow particularly acute when Sarafino repeatedly claims
personal visions of the Virgin. Readers will fully anticipate Sarafino’s death. They will marvel, however,
at where events surrounding that death finally take Furtado. A brilliant foray beyond the usual limits of
fiction.
— Bryce Christensen
Library Journal, starred review — 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. — Leigh Anne Vrabel, Carnegie Lib. of Pittsburgh Copyright 2009 Reed Business Information.
Boston Globe — ...Gaspar’s prose, with both its deliberation and moments of uncontainable joy, is like a soaring choral Mass. Independent of religious faith, skeptic and believer alike cannot help but be swept away by the beauty of the expression. — Julie Wittes Schlack © Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.
Ridge Reviews — The book is passionate, realistic about ministry and both tough and compassionate in its depictions. Gaspar writes with a keen eye to detail, history and faith. It is difficult to put this novel down once started since the reader is prompted continuously to wonder what redemption means in the village and among the characters Gaspar so lovingly describes. — Susan K. Hedahl
Kirkus Reviews — "A troubled New England pastor wrestles with the mysteries of God and man. Gaspar follows up his elegant debut novel (Leaving Pico, 1999) with an equally elegiac contemplation of transgression and redemption set in the same culturally rich Portuguese stew of Provincetown, Mass. . . Gaspar crafts an eloquent, emotionally resonant story that marries the richness of his ethnic characters to the literary affections of writers like John Irving.
Publishers Weekly — In his second novel, award-winning poet-novelist Gaspar (Leaving Pico) explores an unnamed Massachusetts burg (with a strong resemblance to Provincetown) through its Portuguese-speaking community, a collection of rich, emotionally stormy characters. Centered on Fr. Manuel Furtado, the story begins during Manny's nightly ritual of liquor, pills and prayer late on All-Hallows' Eve, when he finds his long-lost childhood friend, Sarafino Pomba, breaking into his church. Dying from AIDS and running from the law, Sarafino takes up residence in a spare room, intent on convincing Manny that he's been visited by the Virgin Mary. . . Gaspar's winding sentences keep the pace measured, but leave deep impressions regarding the fishing community and its inhabitants. . . Gaspar's masterful prose should absorb any reader intrigued by immigrant communities. (Dec.)
Stealing Fatima Frank X. Gaspar. (Counterpoint) December 2009 (416pp) ISBN-13: 978-1-58243-516-9
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Frank's photo by David A. Lipton