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Overview
Father Andrew M. Greeley, one of America's most popular and trusted storytellers, has long charmed readers with his chronicles of the crazy O'Malleys, an irrepressible and resilient Irish American family caught up in the rush of modern American history.
A Midwinter's Tale is the first book in the Family Saga series
Stationed in Bamberg, Germany, in the chaotic aftermath of WWII, pint-sized Charles "Chucky" Cronin O'Malley can't seem to keep himself out of harm's way. Whether it be with black marketeers, border patrols, or even his commanding officer, Chucky always seems to land in impossible scrapes, relying on a quick wit and blind luck (or is it Heavenly intervention?) to save his hide. And until the day he meets beautiful seventeen-year-old Trudi, a girl on the run from smugglers and the U.S. Army, he manages to keep himself in one piece. Trudi needs Chucky's help. If he isn't careful though, she may also make off with his heart.
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781429912204 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tor Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2010 |
| Series: | Family Saga , #1 |
| Sold by: | Macmillan |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 384 |
| Sales rank: | 762,180 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Priest, sociologist, author, and journalist, Father Andrew M. Greeley (1928-2013) was the author of over 50 bestselling novels and more than 100 works of nonfiction. His novels include the Bishop Blackie Ryan series, including The Archbishop in Andalusia; the Nuala Anne McGrail series, including Irish Tweed; the O’Malley Family Saga, including A Midwinter’s Tale; and standalones such as Home for Christmas and The Cardinal Sins.
A leading spokesperson for generations of Catholics, Father Greeley unflinchingly urged his beloved Church to become more responsive to believers’ evolving concerns. He chronicled his service to the Church in two autobiographies, Confessions of a Parish Priest and Furthermore!
Priest, sociologist, author and journalist, Father Andrew M. Greeley built an international assemblage of devout fans over a career spanning five decades. His books include the Bishop Blackie Ryan novels, including The Archbishop in Andalusia, the Nuala Anne McGrail novels, including Irish Tweed, and The Cardinal Virtues. He was the author of over 50 best-selling novels and more than 100 works of non-fiction, and his writing has been translated into 12 languages.
Father Greeley was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Arizona and a Research Associate with the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago. In addition to scholarly studies and popular fiction, for many years he penned a weekly column appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times and other newspapers. He was also a frequent contributor to The New York Times, the National Catholic Reporter, America and Commonweal, and was interviewed regularly on national radio and television. He authored hundreds of articles on sociological topics, ranging from school desegregation to elder sex to politics and the environment.
Throughout his priesthood, Father Greeley unflinchingly urged his beloved Church to become more responsive to evolving concerns of Catholics everywhere. His clear writing style, consistent themes and celebrity stature made him a leading spokesperson for generations of Catholics. He chronicled his service to the Church in two autobiographies, Confessions of a Parish Priest and Furthermore!
In 1986, Father Greeley established a $1 million Catholic Inner-City School Fund, providing scholarships and financial support to schools in the Chicago Archdiocese with a minority student body of more than 50 percent. In 1984, he contributed a $1 million endowment to establish a chair in Roman Catholic Studies at the University of Chicago. He also funded an annual lecture series, “The Church in Society,” at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary, Mundelein, Illinois, from which he received his S.T.L. in 1954.
Father Greeley received many honors and awards, including honorary degrees from the National University of Ireland at Galway, the University of Arizona and Bard College. A Chicago native, he earned his M.A. in 1961 and his Ph.D. in 1962 from the University of Chicago.
Father Greeley was a penetrating student of popular culture, deeply engaged with the world around him, and a lifelong Chicago sports fan, cheering for the Bulls, Bears and the Cubs. Born in 1928, he died in May 2013 at the age of 85.
Read an Excerpt
A Midwinter's Tale
By Andrew M. M. Greeley
Tom Doherty Associates
Copyright © 1998 Andrew M. Greeley Enterprises, Ltd.All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4299-1220-4
CHAPTER 1
When we lived on Menard Avenue, I used to lie half-awake listening to my parents' conversation after the Bing Crosby program or Amos and Andy.
So I heard their conversation about love between Rosemarie and me.
I slept on an old couch in the enclosed front porch of our small third-floor apartment. My brother, Mike (called Michael by everyone else in the family), five years younger, slept on another couch against the opposite wall after he had graduated from his crib. Thick, royal blue drapes, tattered and worn, were drawn to shut out the streetlights, and an old carpet protected our feet from the concrete floor. In the winter a wheezy electric heater, glowing like a rising sun, and several layers of blankets kept us warm. Dilapidated shades hung on the other side of the glass doors to the living room. The doors would not close tightly so it was easy to hear my parents, but difficult to stay awake and follow what they were saying.
My memories of those days, brought back now so that, remembered, they may exist once again and forever, are hazy and insubstantial. The different time periods in my first twelve years, so long in their duration at the time, are mingled in my recollections. The boundaries between sleep and half-sleep, that magic time when you are still awake to enjoy your dreams, are uncertain. What I actually heard, what I dreamed I heard, what I wanted to hear, what I created because of my later experiences — all are fused in an intricate puzzle over which has been spread a patina of nostalgia, a golden glow of reconstructed joy with an occasional sharp pain.
The conversation I am about to describe certainly happened. I can locate it in time — late summer of 1940: Knute Rockne, All American, with Pat O'Brien as the Rock and a kid named Reagan as George Gipp, the Fall of France, the Battle of Britain, the German-AmericanBund, boogie-woogie, nylons, the early color movies (God's Country and the Woman was the first I saw), talk of a "third term" for Roosevelt, fifty-cent haircuts, and ten-cent beer.
I know the date because it was after our visit to the Clancys' home in Lake Geneva and my disgrace. I was a month short of my twelfth birthday. The worst of the Depression was over, but, as my parents would say, we had thought that before.
Although I recall lines of worry and exhaustion on both their faces, I do not remember anxious conversations about the Depression. Since I would later be obsessed by the Depression and our poverty, it is not likely that I would forget such discussions if they had taken place.
They would occasionally laugh about the day their "ship comes in," a common phrase in those days to anticipate in fantasy a prosperity that no one ever expected to see again.
Mostly their colloquies were interchanges between two good friends who shared many interests, including (though by no means exclusively) the four children for whom they were, surprisingly it seemed to them, responsible and St. Ursula parish, which was the matrix for their family life.
I recall the affectionate sound of their voices, the gentle outer surface of the masks they had adopted in their commedia dell'arte: my mother naive and shrewd, my father experienced and realistic. The tones were mere hints of character, and not always accurate revelations of the person behind the persona.
Nonetheless, I find myself on the edge of tears when I re-create, hopefully forever, those lost voices of gentle love.
I cannot recollect quarrels. Later my father would tell me that my mother's temper, once aroused, was a fearsome spectacle. Still later he would explain that I was unlikely ever to see it because she reserved such displays for her bedroom. Yet later he would hint that the reason was that in her personality one strong passion quickly changed to another.
Were these preludes to interludes of intense emotion when they went to their bedroom?
I must ask whether perhaps I came to be as part of one such episode. I know that science does not believe the emotional atmosphere of a conception affects the personality of the one conceived. Moreover it requires hours for sperm to penetrate egg after it has been sent on its frantic rush.
But if I am the result of such an episode of anger turned to violent tenderness, it would explain a hell of a lot.
We loved to listen to the radio after supper and hum along or sing with the music, such as Glenn Miller's "Imaginary Ballroom" and Carmen Miranda's "Begin the Beguine," which I still find myself humming occasionally.
Sometimes they were quiet after the radio was turned off and we children had all gone to bed, not very often. I was not an eavesdropper much less a voyeur. I listened to the voices because they were there to listen to. If perhaps the conversation was about me, what harm was there in knowing where you stood?
Right?
I remember the content of few of their talks, so I must have been the subject only rarely — hardly appropriate for the firstborn son. They did comment on Jane's "first period," which seemed to me, having only the slightest notion what it was, more appropriate for repugnance than for Mom's rejoicing. Often they talked about Peg's beauty and emerging talent on the violin.
"She is special," my father would say.
"And such a dear," my mother would add.
Fair enough. My little sister, Peg, was my favorite person in all the world, Wendy, I thought, to my Peter Pan. She became objectionable only in the company of the Clancy brat.
They did lament one night my failure on the flute.
"But he has a fine voice. I think he'll be a tenor, don't you, dear?" "He'll be all right."
"And he's clever with his cute little camera, though I don't know what that's good for, do you?"
"He could become a world-famous photographic artist. There are such people, you know."
"Wouldn't that be cute?"
If I had been awake, I would have protested that I didn't want to be a world-famous picture taker. At the threshold of sleep, I think I was flattered.
On that pleasantly cool night in late August of 1940 when they talked of Rosie and me, I was so close to sleep that I almost chose to ignore their exchange even though it seemed to be about me.
Dad: "I don't think there's any chance for the poor little tyke. Her mother drinks and her father is ... well, you know what he is."
Mom: "She and Peg are like two peas in a pod. They even managed to have their first periods the same week!" Dad: "They'll probably have their first children on the same night."
Laughter from the two parents.
I look over that bit of dialogue and shake my head. Both little girls were going on ten. I must have remembered that exchange from a later overheard exchange.
You see how hard this "remembrance of things past" is?
Still, I have the major images in this part of the story right. My humiliation that day at Lake Geneva is imprinted on my memory in all its rich detail and will never be erased.
Nor am I likely to forget the first time I ever kissed a girl. Even if I was going on twelve and she was going on ten.
As I type those lines onto my word processor screen, I remember the joy of that moment. I tasted the sweetness of my awakening sexuality, surely; but, even more, I tasted the sweetness of the power of my tenderness to wipe away tears.
As I said to two psychiatrists, one my brother-in-law and one my son, in a late-evening conversation a couple of years ago, "There is no such thing as a latency period between infancy and puberty. A man always wants women, no matter how old he is. During what you guys call latency years, his desire for women is overwhelmed by his fear of them."
They admitted that my position was not unreasonable.
Mom: "She's such a darling child, not really like either of her parents, poor dears."
Dad: "I still can't believe Clarice married him."
Mom: "She wanted to have a child. She thought he'd be kinder than her father. Maybe he is. Remember what the Gypsy woman said: that Clarice would have a little girl who would do great things. Maybe we can help Rosemarie, even if we couldn't help her parents. And she so adores our little Chucky."
Dad: "They're children, April."
Mom: "Children love too. Our Chucky is a devilish little imp, but I think he is really fond of her. He pretends to tease her, but he really is very kind to her."
I think I wondered uneasily, seven-eighths asleep as I was, whether they knew about the final scene of that ugly day at Lake Geneva. I was pretty sure she would tell no one, not even Peg. It was our secret, wasn't it?
Well, we hadn't negotiated about it.
Of course, she told Peg. She told Peg everything.
Dad: "If he wasn't, Peg would sock him."
Mom: "I think Rosemarie is trying to adopt us."
Dad: "Not a wise choice, given our finances."
Mom: "Dear, it's not money the poor child is looking for."
Dad: "Well, April, what do we do about her?"
Mom: "We can't turn her away, can we?"
Dad: "I suppose not ... and Chucky?"
Mom: "Shouldn't we let nature take its course and see what happens? Even now, when he's not being Peck's Bad Boy, they make a cute couple, don't you think?"
Dad (after a contemplative pause): "If we're the only ones who can help her, we certainly should do what we can. Maybe we can save her."
Mom: "Maybe, dear, she'll end up saving us."
Looking back later, I would have liked to think I was furious at their dialogue. How dare they make such decisions about a boy my age. Besides, I felt no emotion for Rosie Clancy other than distaste. She was a spoiled rich brat, the daughter of a wealthy man whom I despised, in great part because of his wealth.
If I had been able to face up to my real feelings in those days, I would have had to admit that Rosemarie was on my mind constantly even then. I pretended to dislike her, but in fact, she dazzled me. Her face, her body, her long black hair, her laughter, her quick wit, her obvious intelligence, had created fascination and fear — in roughly equal parts — in my soul. I think that as I fell asleep that night on Menard Avenue, I knew that somehow our destinies would be intertwined.
I may even have felt happy about that fate.
CHAPTER 2When I was in high school, I considered the possibility of a vocation to the priesthood because it seemed to me that living without a woman would not have been all that difficult. I chose not to join the Dominican order because my observations had led me to believe that the life of a priest, even in those days of the middle 1940s, was too complicated and disorderly for my meticulous and methodical personality.
I often wonder whether, in the final analysis, the priesthood might have been a wiser choice.
On my junior retreat at the ripe old age of sixteen, I wrote out my "life plan." Since I am an incorrigible paper saver, I still have it:
I am convinced that I can best serve God and my fellow man by exercising the lay vocation. I will join the service after graduation because it is the obligation of a citizen to defend his country and to obtain veterans' benefits for my college education. When the war is over, I will attend a small Catholic college and major in accounting, a field well suited to my personality and character. I shall work at a part-time job during my college years to amass a certain amount of capital against hard times. After graduation I will go to work for a small and reliable firm of accountants, the kind of firm which is not likely to be engulfed when the Depression returns.
Then I will pass the C.P.A. exam and settle down to a sober and industrious life. I will not smoke or drink or gamble. I will date only occasionally until I am ready to contemplate marriage. I will marry a quiet and loyal woman and ask that God bless us with a large family. We will live in a modest apartment in south Austin. Eventually, when we will have saved enough money, we will buy a convenient house in Oak Park from which I can walk to Lake Street every morning and thus protect my wife and children from the risks of owning and driving an auto.
All our children will attend Catholic schools, hopefully Fenwick and Trinity.
I hope to lead a decent, sober, productive, and respectable life and to live to see my grandchildren and perhaps a great-grandchild or two.
As I look over that nicely thought-out and carefully expressed statement, I feel a profound admiration for the steady mind and clear eyes of the young man who wrote it. He was sensible and wise beyond his years.
My kids did go to Catholic schools, even to Fenwick and Trinity. I don't smoke; never did, thank God. I avoid gambling unless it is a sure thing, like betting on the Chicago Bulls. I take only a small sip of the creature now and then. And I did join the Army when I graduated from high school in 1946.
All my other resolutions went up in smoke.
In this memoir I will try to explain what happened, though I'm not sure I will be able to do that, even to myself.
I must make clear to the reader that I am not without faults that go a long way toward explaining my bizarre life.
I have a quick mouth, far too quick for my own good. I talk without thinking. Some find this fault charming. I, however, find it dangerous.
I have a bad habit of intervening in other people's problems, again without thinking. Rarely do I bother to wonder whether they might not want my help. In fact I tend to act on occasion like a romantic, a man on a horse with a lance jousting with the bad guys while protecting the good guys — and the good gals, of course. John Wayne in armor. Patently such fantasies are utterly incompatible with my basic identity as an accountant.
Women overwhelm me. For their part they find me "cute" and want to run my life. Rarely, in my perhaps obsessive fascination with them, am I able to resist their plans.
A woman of some importance in this story once remarked to me, "Chuck, you take everything away from a woman — her clothes, her defenses, her modesty, her secrets, her hiding places, her inhibitions, her shame, her will to resist you. She is naked in every sense of that word."
I doubted and still doubt that description.
"So then," I replied to her, "she takes charge of my life and runs it for me."
"Naturally," the woman replied, as though that conclusion followed from her previous remarks with unassailable logic.
Much of my professional career has been devoted to the celebration of women. However, and despite the comments cited above, they remain a mystery to me. Which is as it should be.
The recent article in the New York Times Magazine reported to the world that I look like Bob Newhart, a somewhat older contemporary on the West Side of Chicago. Should this comment be accurate — I am not the one to judge — then the similarity is appropriate: like the Newhart persona I am the kind of man to whom things happen, a man whose most sober and grave intentions are swept away by events.
My serious goals, in other words, were swept into comedy by the women in my life, usually in concert with one another.
I never had a chance.
CHAPTER 3When we were at Twin Lakes that summer, I did not want to visit the Clancy house at Lake Geneva. I resisted the lure of a ride in their big Packard convertible, the enticement of a spin on their ChrisCraft, and a run down the lake in their sailboat. I hated Mr. Clancy. He was, in my moderate judgment, rich and crooked. I lost my protest as I always did.
Rosie certainly had everything a girl could want, every material thing anyway; but she shared her possessions with others generously, compulsively.
"If she wants to give you her dolly, Peg," Mom would say cautiously, "you should accept the gift graciously."
I refused to accept anything from her, not even the model airplane that must have been bought especially for me.
I think I did take a ship model once.
Nor did she insist on her own way. She had strong ideas about what we ought to do next ("Ask Daddy to give us a ride in his speedboat"), but would almost always yield to Peg's suggestions and sometimes to mine.
Even at nine, my sister and my foster sister, as she would become, were young women with robust wills. Instead of fighting, they arrived at quick consensus — often against me. In time I would realize that of the two dominant personalities, Peg was the more dominant.
Later I came to understand that Peg's judgments were essential for Rosie, almost for her life itself.
I always protested, for the record, a visit from Rosie to Twin Lakes or a venture of ours to the Clancys' at Lake Geneva.
Until 1940 my objections were not too vigorous, however. I liked to ride in speedboats too.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from A Midwinter's Tale by Andrew M. M. Greeley. Copyright © 1998 Andrew M. Greeley Enterprises, Ltd.. Excerpted by permission of Tom Doherty Associates.
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