Clerical Errors - by Alan Isler (Paperback)

About the Book

Despite a lack of piety, Father Edmond Music--a converted Jew--is entrenched at an English estate with a fabulous library. "Clerical Errors" opens with what could be an attempt on Edmond's life by Vatican henchmen, and follows his search for a stolen Shakespeare folio, and his unraveling love affair with his lifelong housekeeper.

Book Synopsis

Aside from his blatant lack of piety -- and the fact that he's Jewish -- Father Edmond Music could have been a model priest. Now, entrenched at an English estate with a vast library, he would rather pursue a decades-old liaison with his housekeeper than crack down on his assistant's dial-a-confession phone ministry, or, more important, investigate the whereabouts of a rare Shakespeare text gone missing on his watch.
Then, out of nowhere, penance comes due. His car is found totaled (possibly by Vatican hit men), his annoying archrival of the cloth is looking to nail him as a thief, and the once-passionate housekeeper is lapsing into religious fervor. With his forty-year idyll falling apart, Edmond can no longer ignore the danger of the present, or the echoes of his buried past.
National Jewish Book Award-winning author Alan Isler delivers a hilarious and touching literary homily, confirming his unique gift for mingling comedy and tragedy in this deeply moving exploration of faith, love, and identity.

Review Quotes

The New Yorker Gleefully blasphemous and unerringly comic.

Donna Rifkind The Washington Post Wonderfully antic...Rich and strange and not easily forgotten.

Noah Isackson Chicago Tribune A sophisticated comedy of faith...Isler guides an entertaining story through the sacred and profane.

Tahl Raz San Francisco Chronicle An oddly affecting comic gambol through faith, felony, and the limits of human love...The wit (and ire) is often pitch perfect...By novel's end, few things escape unscathed save one's faith in a good read.

About the Author

Alan Isler was born in London in 1934. He taught English literature in New York City for twenty-five years. His first novel, The Prince of West End Avenue, won the 1994 National Jewish Book Award and was one of five fiction finalists for the National Book Critics Circle Award. He is also the author of Kraven Images and The Bacon Fancier: Four Tales. He lives in New York City and Sag Harbor.