The Faithful Narrative of a Pastor's Disappearance

Garage Dark grey a5: Picador, 2002. Hardcover. Good. Hardback with dust jacket in good conditon. In this irresistible satire, adultery, real estate, religion and intrigue collide in suburban New England. Reverend Thomas Mosher, the young black pastor of the Pilgrims' Congregational Church in W-------, Massachusetts, has vanished without a trace. Does the rumoured affair between the pastor and Bethany Caruso, unhappily married mother of two, provide an explanation? Did Thomas's final sermon, 'The Shapes of Love', contain a clue? Did the congregation's white, liberal parishioners drive him away? Can people just - disappear? Bethany and the rest of the parish grapple with the ensuing crisis. Chief among them: Artemesia Angelis, a pious housewife; Margaret Howard, the imposing matriarch of a thriving real estate business; and Bobby Caruso, Bethany's husband, whose lack of interest in church affairs is matched only by Bethany's disdain for his 'fornicatorium', a hapless attempt to save their marriage. Benjamin Anastas examines the tensions between liberalism and provincial small-mindedness, and sketches the passions and prejudices of his characters with a playful but ultimately sympathetic eye, leaving us with a thoughtful, bittersweet portrait of the modern American soul. The Faithful Narrative of a Pastor's Disappearance is a bold, blisteringly funny and ultimately haunting satire of modern materialism.