Dear James (Loyola Classics) - Softcover

Hassler, Jon

4.02

618 ratings by Goodreads

9780829424300: Dear James (Loyola Classics)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 082942430X ISBN 13: 9780829424300

Publisher: Loyola Classics, 2006

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“Characters so exquisitely rendered that even a first-time visitor to Staggerford will come to love them as old friends.” —The New York Times Book Review
“A deliciously rich, simmering brew of envy, charity, and redemptive love.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Old-fashioned storytelling at its best.”—Kirkus Reviews

Personal and public crises descend on Agatha McGee in her seventieth year. The feisty, quick-witted, fiercely Catholic spinster travels to Italy and Ireland to shake off the malaise of a forced retirement. There, against the backdrop of IRA and Islamic terrorism, she confronts the love of her life, a priest who has betrayed her by concealing his clerical identity. Back home in Staggerford, Minnesota, two spiteful acquaintances smear Agatha’s good name with malicious stories. With the sure touch of a narrative master, Jon Hassler blends gentle satire and acute insight in a compelling story of loss, forgiveness, and renewal.

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Book Description:

Agatha Magee, the feisty, quick-witted, fiercely Catholic doyenne of Staggerford, Minnesota, confronts crises large and small in her 70th year. She is forced to retire from her beloved teaching, she’s crushed to learn that her Irish pen pal James is a priest, and she’s faced with the evils of the world — from Irish terrorism to the petty jealousies that tear apart life in a small town. Jon Hassler explores themes of loss and spiritual renewal in this engaging novel.

From the Inside Flap:

dore's Elementary in Staggerford, Minnesota is closed, Miss Agatha McGee, who has taught there her whole life, is thrown back on her friends to sustain her. She finds her friends wanting. Fleeing unhappiness at home, Agatha sets off on a pilgrimage to Italy, unaware that her old soulmate and nemesis, Father James O'Hannon of County Kildare, Ireland, is waiting to meet her. There, in the golden light of Assisi, Agatha and James begin to rebuild their friendship . . . and their love.
From the Paperback edition.

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