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Title: The Conduct of Saints
Author: Christopher Davis
Narrator: David Colacci
Format: Unabridged
Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
Language: English
Release date: 05-15-13
Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
The Conduct of Saintsportrays a battleground on which power, God, sex, and the devil collide in the impoverished city of Rome during May and June of 1945.
The German occupation of the Eternal City has ended, the war in Europe is over, the atomic bomb has yet to fall on Japan, and Rome is under the jurisdiction of the victors: the American, British, and French Allied Control Commission.
An American Vatican prelate and lawyer, Brendan Doherty, is involved in two crusades. Abhorring capital punishment, he means to avert the execution of the Nazi collaborator Pietro Koch. In addition, as devils advocate, Doherty intends to prove the hypocrisy of Alessandro Serenelli, the man who 40 years before murdered Maria Goretti. Converted by a vision, Serenelli has spent his life, in prison and out, promoting the beatification of his victim.
Doherty - memory tormented, hard drinking, both angry and compassionate, a moral street fighter for what he is sure is right - feels guilty for having done too little to save the citys Jews from Auschwitz. He engages in his causes and quarrels with Romes pre-dolce vita, postwar society - people both fictional and historical, like Alessandro Serenelli, Maria Goretti, Pietro Koch, Pope Pius XII, and film director Luchino Visconti - until he comes to a reckoning with himself and with the serene, unshakable saint-maker Serenelli.
Critic Reviews:
"The Conduct of Saintscaptures the time and the place; it is a profoundly atmospheric novel. More important, it presents an unforgettable cast of characters. Once again Davis' work commands our attention." (Huffington Post)
"Historical fiction, set in Rome in 1945 during the fraught post-war period. With many characters based on real figures, including Pope Pius XII, this book has elements of a thriller.... A strong example of an uncommon type of historical fiction, appealing to readers who like to see guilt punished or forgiven." (Kirkus Reviews)
Members Reviews:
Shallow treatment of characters
This could have been a great novel. Instead, it does little to develop characters at any depth. I appreciated the description of Rome at the time of the take over by the allies.
Can murderer be redeemed?
Redemption is hard to achieve and sometimes even harder to understand, as Christopher Davis makes clear in this novel of post-world-war-II Italy and Vatican promise. Can a murderer be redeemed by seeing a vision of his victim forgiving him? Is there hope for a man whoâs caused the deaths of too many to remember their faces? Can faith redeem, and can it be rushed into existence before a court condemns? And finally, will a drunken priest redeem himself by saving a prisonerâs life, or by condemning another manâs soulâdo lives or souls weight heavier on the scales of salvation?
Italy struggles under Allied occupation at the end of World War II. At least a few of those who collaborated with Hitler now face justice, while others struggle to force their own will through the labyrinth of political, religious and sexual corruption left behind. The Catholic church needs a new saint for a new age, and perhaps an old sinner will be the one to conduct her on her way.
Each in his own different prison, each challenged to find escape, and each lavish in invention, the characters of this novel conduct their own strange dance around each otherâs sins. Sexual, political, military and personal corruption vie for control.
