Books by Jack Fritscher

The really dangerous life of altar boys…
The Catholic Church recruited 200,000 boys into seminaries in the 1950’s.
Only 20,000 were ordained. What happened to the missing 180,000 boys?
All those boys and their families will want to read this expose.

Fresh from E. M. Forster, Merchant-Ivory might easily film this new, very authentic, period-novel of a boy’s life at Misericordia Seminary. Ryan O’Hara, 14, narrates his own lively story of imperial Rector Karg, disciplinarian Father Gunn, tart Father Polistina, and rebel-priest Father Chris Dryden “who knows Fellini and JFK.” Strong characters and snappy dialog propel plot conflict forward keeping boys-school location fresh. Storytelling author gives each ensemble character, hero or villain, student or priest, man or woman, a rich back story. (Black civil rights of the 60’s as well as three interesting women characters open this story out of the seminary and onto the streets of Chicago.) Narrator Ryan O’Hara is ironically flawed–which interestingly twists the tale told to the reader in this “Catholic Catcher in the Rye.”

As priests collide with boys, novel/memoir deftly chooses archetype not stereotype. Plot cuts to chase of “what they did to all those kids” in 50’s/60’s. Intriguing theme: what actually did happen when 200,000 American boys’ bodies, hearts, and souls lay at the mercy of conservative-vs-liberal politics driving the Church of Rome? Author plot-snaps the dramatic tension of Vatican II into Kid in the way he structured politics through his signature novel, Some Dance to Remember.

For the general reader: Ryan’s teen-age classmates display the Catholic-1950s roots of 20th-century “Recovering Catholic Panic” and early 21st-century “Post-Catholic Angst.” Novel/memoir seems more interested in telling truths than getting even–although mocking irony is sweet revenge.

Plot is vivid as a screenplay. The fresh-mouthed dialog fits the period. The villains will make you throw the book across the room. Author’s style polishes each scene, sentence, and word-choice down to the ambiguity of truth.

4-Star Comedy.
1950’s ultimate boys’ school story told as never before.
Boys go to seminary.
Boys meet priests.
Boys must decide identity.
A self-help novel of esteem for “Anyone Who Has Ever Had to Make a Choice.”
You needn’t be Catholic to enjoy this coming-of-age Fictional Memoir.

Jack Fritscher, recruited at age 14, attended The Pontifical College Josephinum from September 4, 1953 to December 15, 1963. Jack Fritscher exited the Josephinum , age 24, after nearly 11 years. He was salutatorian of his college class, 1961; assistant editor and writer for the Josephinum Review; and received the four minor orders of Lector, Porter, Exorcist, and Acolyte. His new comic novel–a fictional memoir–about true-life in the Golden Age of Catholic Seminaries in the 1950s is published by Palm Drive Publishing.

“I was, for 6 years, a schoolmate of Bernard Cardinal Law of Boston. While this novel is fiction, it addresses the cover-ups seminary culture institutionalized internally as a way to prevent publicity and scandal.”
–Jack Fritscher

REVIEW ENDORSEMENTS

READ WHAT THEY DID TO THE KID
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REVIEW ENDORSEMENTS

“Jack Fritscher’s gift for language makes me think of the poet Dennis Cooper.”
—Ian Young, The Body Politic, Toronto

“All of this is expressed in subtle, fine writing. Fritscher is a polished writer, editing his work to the bone so that the entire mood points only to the feeling he wishes to impress on the reader. One thing for sure. This fellow is a super writer.”
—Virginia Sink, The Tribune, Oklahoma City

“Powerful…outcast, and at times cruel…young men forced to shun sexuality. A distinct insight into seminary life for both Catholic and non-Catholic.”—John R. Selig, ForeWord magazine

“Genres collide. Postmodern and deconstructed, What They Did to the Kid straddles genres, magically shifting shape in the reader’s hands. Jack Fritscher is novelist and memoirist—my favorite kind of both.” —Mark Hemry, editor, Chasing Danny Boy: Powerful Stories of Celtic Eros

“This novel of the secret culture of priests and boys locked away in a seminary boarding school joins excellent company with Robert Musil’s Young Törless, James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, and Calder Willingham’s End As a Man.”
—Harold Cox, editor, Checkmate magazine

Cover photograph: William Holman Hunt’s “May Morning at Magdalen Tower,” 1890, Copyright Board of Trustees of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside, (Lady Lever Art Gallery, Port Sunlight), Liverpool, United Kingdom. Printed with permission.

“May Morning at Magdalen Tower”
William Holman Hunt