Daniel Hornsby

A short blurb in the NY Times Book Review made this sounded interesting, and the 4.24 average rating on Goodreads clinched this. Sadly, I was bored with Hornsby's tale of a retired, repentant Catholic priest (Father Dan) and his trip westward to reconnect with two sets of friends, and to deliver a final message to a former colleague. Along the way, he nurses a coyote back to health after it was hit by a car. Essentially, his meandering thoughts and guilt about what he did and did not do as a priest. It was a struggle to finish this one.… (mehr)

A surprisingly self-assured first novel, Via Negativa tells the story of Fr. Dan, a rather heterodox priest who is ousted from his retirement in Indiana and sets off on a road trip across the U.S., stopping along the way to explore kitschy tourist attractions and rescue an injured coyote. This is not a novel about events so much as it is about ruminations on faith, how it is lost and how it is maintained. As the title suggests, this is also as much about what is not said as it is about what is. Ordinarily this kind of book wouldn't hold much appeal for me, for a whole variety of reasons, but Daniel Hornsby's prose is a delight to read and there were so many points where I had to laugh in delighted recognition at some observation of Fr. Dan's. (He's not generally trying to be funny, but if you're an extremely lapsed Catholic like me, there are some things that are just going to hit you as darkly funny and/or yup, that's how it is.) If you're interested in themes of faith, loss, guilt, redemption, various medieval Christian philosophers and/or coyotes, this book is recommended.… (mehr)