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Product Details
Free Press, October 2006
Trade Paperback, 416 pages
ISBN-10: 0743249089
ISBN-13: 9780743249089
Description
Vows is a compelling story of one family's unshakable faith that to be called is to serve, however high the cost may be. Peter Manseau's riveting evocation of his parents' parallel childhoods, their similar callings, their experiences in the seminary and convent, and how they met while tending to the homeless of Roxbury, Massachusetts, during the riot-prone 1960s is a page-turning meditation on the effect that love can have on profound faith.
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Table of Contents"This is a strange and marvelous story, told with unerring grace. In the Manseau family, the call to religious service is like the call of the ancient Sirens. And yet they survive. Peter Manseau's writing is keen-eyed, lyrical, muscular, and more, and while Vows is a story about big ideas -- religion, devotion, sacrifice -- it is above all a love letter to his own family. Like the best love letters, it is as honest as it is tender."
-- Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics and author of Turbulent Souls
-- Stephen J. Dubner, coauthor of Freakonomics and author of Turbulent Souls
"An elegant, sonorous story of how faith can turn and bite you clean through, from a son of the bitten....Manseau's work is a powerful narrative history of a vocation steeped in earthly influences."
-- Kirkus Reviews
-- Kirkus Reviews
"This is a love story about a family, about a way of being in the world, and, ultimately, about the nature of institutionalized faith. The fact that it is also full of facts, keen catenations, and almost surgical analyses does not matter nearly so much, however, as does the sheer beauty and cordial grace with which Manseau delivers these summa bona to us as his readers."
-- Phyllis Tickle, compiler of The Divine Hours
-- Phyllis Tickle, compiler of The Divine Hours
"What seems remarkable to me about so many American Catholics in the twenty-first century is their longing to love the church that doesn't necessarily wish to love them back. Lives change, histories get complicated -- even or especially for "cradle Catholics." And yet this palpable longing to be connected, to be welcomed home. That tension is at the center of Peter Manseau's heartfelt memoir -- his father an estranged priest, his mother a former nun, both parents deeply faithed. It is the son telling what he can tell, without bitterness, with much love."
-- Paul Hendrickson, author of Seminary: A Search and Sons of Mississippi
-- Paul Hendrickson, author of Seminary: A Search and Sons of Mississippi
"Peter Manseau's spectacular memoir, at once darkly comic and serious as a crucifixion, ranks itself instantly as one of the great reflections upon the life of faith and American Catholicism. A superbly written page-turner and a contemporary historical document for the ages. I can think of five ecclesiasts -- Catholic and non-Catholic, practicing and lapsed -- whom I will buy it for immediately."
-- Wilton Barnhardt, author of Gospel
-- Wilton Barnhardt, author of Gospel
New York Times, December 8, 2009
...Motoko Rich with notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler with best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host. Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir "Vows," the novel "Songs for the Butcher's Daughter" and, most recently, the book "Rag ...
New York Times, December 7, 2009
...Motoko Rich with notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler with best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host. Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir "Vows," the novel "Songs for the Butcher's Daughter" and, most recently, the book "Rag ...
New York Times, December 4, 2009
...Motoko Rich with notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler with best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host. Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir "Vows," the novel "Songs for the Butcher's Daughter" and, most recently, the book "Rag ...
New York Times, December 4, 2009
...Motoko Rich with notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler with best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host. Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir "Vows," the novel "Songs for the Butcher's Daughter" and, most recently, the book "Rag ...
New York Times, December 4, 2009
...Motoko Rich with notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler with best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host. Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir "Vows," the novel "Songs for the Butcher's Daughter" and, most recently, the book "Rag ...
New York Times, December 4, 2009
...Motoko Rich with notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler with best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host. Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir "Vows," the novel "Songs for the Butcher's Daughter" and, most recently, the book "Rag ...
New York Times, December 4, 2009
...Peter Manseau is the author of the memoir ?Vows,? the novel ?Songs for the Butcher’s Daughter? and, most recently, the book ?Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World?s ...
Jackson Sun, June 6, 2009
...scientific experiment proves the existence of God, 'that doesn't mean science won't come up with one.' Peter Manseau The book: 'Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead' Peter Manseau has made - from teeth and whiskers, fingers ...
NPR, April 22, 2009
...discuss their work. The child of a former Roman Catholic priest and a mother who was a nun, Peter Manseau is making a career of writing about religion and spiritualism at its most unorthodox. , which he co-wrote with Jeff Sharlet, is a ...
NPR, April 21, 2009
...discuss their work. The child of a former Roman Catholic priest and a mother who was a nun, Peter Manseau is making a career of writing about religion and spiritualism at its most unorthodox. , which he co-wrote with Jeff Sharlet, is a ...
Peter Manseau's Books
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Songs for the Butcher's DaughterAn inventive, charismatic fiction debut from a stand-out literary talent that explores the lives of a Yiddish poet and his young translator.Read More
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Killing the BuddhaNow in paperback -- the book that caused a religious and critically acclaimed stir. Publishers Weekly called it "the most original and insightful...Read More
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