The Power and the Glory [J0057]

1990 HCDJ Special Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the 1940 original, with minor wear - and with a new introduction by John Updike. One of TIME Magazine's 100 best English-language novels, this tale of a fugitive priest in Mexico is quite simply "Graham Greene's masterpiece" (John Updike, The New York Review of Books). The Power and the Glory is "a violent, raw" work on "suffering, strained faith, and ultimate redemption" (The Atlantic). "Attracts not only those who read for diversion and excitement, but those, too, who read for the pleasure of superb writing and shrewd contriving of story." —Chicago Tribune

In the Mexican state of Tabasco in the 1930s, all vestiges of Catholicism are being outlawed by the government. As churches are razed, icons are banned, and the price of devotion is execution, an unnamed member of the clergy flees. He's known only as the "whisky priest." Beset by heretical vices, guilt, and an immoral past, he's torn between self-destruction and self-preservation. Too modest to be a martyr, too stubborn to follow the law, and too craven to take a bullet, he now travels as one of the hunted—attending, in secret, to the spiritual needs of the faithful. When a peasant begs him to return to Tabasco to hear the confessions of a dying man, the whisky priest knows it's a trap. But it's also his duty—and possibly his salvation.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "A deeply moving novel by one of the greats."; "Terribly beautiful and human. So desolate it hurts and yet so so hopeful. Cinematic and vivid."; "Greene's depiction of men of faith in crisis is unparalleled, never coming off as simplistic, trite, or melodramatic."; "Greene is doing something genuinely interesting here-using the confrontations between a whisky-soaked priest and a zealous atheist lieutenant to expose how religious fervor and ideological certainty can make mirror images of each other."; "Probably one of the best books about Catholicism. The whiskey priest is one of my favorite protagonists of all time. Such a good book."