Another Chance

by Frank Lowe

If one night you met Max Neal, a darkly handsome nineteen-year-old who was turning tricks on the streets of Denver, and asked him what had brought him to this life-he wouldn't have told you the truth.

And he wouldn't have told you about his love affair with power. It was his hunger for power that precipitated the roundabout and sacrilegious journey that led to his popular, charismatic priesthood. But Max eventually learns that power cannot protect...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0595363873
• ISBN13: 9780595363872
• Release Date: September 2005
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Length: 184 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Hope for gay Catholics

It was a gripping read. While I could "put it down" (which is good) I definitely wanted to pick it up again (whichis better). I empathized with Max: you presented his character well. I found it more difficult to make sense of the Archbishop. He seemed to be just generally someone who enjoyed making minor trouble for others. The sheer improbability of the plot and its resolution didn't bother me. Truth is often stranger than fiction, so the coincidences were OK as far as I was concerned. The motivation of the priests in being priests and what their faith meant to each of them beyond the fact that it was a job was not so clear. Perhaps you didn't want to "go all spiritual" so as not to put people off. The TV talks that Max gave - were good, though pretty secular in character. An agnostic psychotherapist might have said pretty much the same. The eroticism was tastefully done and it would have been a shame if it had not been there. There was little evidence of the spiritual anguish that many gay Catholics go through as they seek to reconcile their sexuality with their faith. Perhaps you wanted to avoid this because it has all been done before - but it seems to me that to do so is to make the story less realistic. The fact that you omitted prayer and internal turmoil meant that there were "God" and "Church" shaped holes in the book. You didn't miss out eroticism, because that would have made the book "limp along", missing a limb; but you did understate these other aspects, so the book limped in these regards. This did not spoil the book, though: just made it less moving and realistic than it could have been. It was quite an emotional read for me. I loved your theme that there is always "Another Chance": I only wish thatI believed that were true as far as PJH and were concerned. (...)