Word: fathers
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...overtaken ethical responsibility and the appearance of certainty is all that remains, the characters struggle to reconcile order and truth. Jones leads the cast as Sister Aloysius, a teacher who plows headfirst through level after level of rigid Catholic bureaucracy to protect her students from the sexual advances of Father Flynn (Chris McGarry), a popular priest...
...Shanley is a master of the literary balancing act, suspending his drama in a web of tension between Sister Aloysius, Father Flynn, and the doe-eyed Sister James (Lisa Joyce), all jockeying for position on a relatively level playing field. The audience’s heart goes to Sister James, whose innocence will not let her believe the accusations; its heads are with Flynn, whose charismatic self-defense is too convincing for our comfort; but our guts are with Aloysius. His skillful writing has earned Shanley a pile of awards, including the 2005 Tony and Pulitzer Prize in Drama...
...winning success. Her take on the nun is unsweetened, to paraphrase Sister Aloysius’s own words, yet sympathetic enough that the audience is able to see the tenderness into the gnarled exterior. McGarry has worked with Shanley on four previous occasions, and his experience is evident in Father Flynn’s wonderfully authentic urban Irishness. Joyce also ably conveys Sister James’s deepening unease as the Father Flynn scandal progresses...
...real magic trick is Hill's, and the transformation he works on his main character. Coyne begins the book as a cold, despicable misanthrope, but as we learn about the personal past that made him that way - he had an abusive father - we gain sympathy for him. Coyne changes, gaining humor in desperation, warming to the girlfriend he took for granted, and reconnecting with the music that he has all but abandoned. When confronted with real inhumanity, as opposed to his own affected coldness, Coyne softens unexpectedly, and his emotions wake up. We start to like him and sympathize with...
...anything by detailing Coyne's sufferings any further, except to say that they're suitably vicious and cathartic. A lot of horror writers wind up revealing a sentimental streak in the end, but if Hill has one he keeps it well in check. This is, ultimately, a book about fathers and sons: Coyne must come to terms with his abusive father, and with the avenging ghost, who is the father of another key character. It's an appropriate enough theme for Hill, because every artist has to work in the shadow of his or her father-in-art, and symbolically...