Bread for the Baker's Child: A Novel [Paperback]

Joseph Caldwell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2002

After nearly ten years, Joseph Caldwell returns to the literary scene with a rich novel of immense and resonant scope. With Dostoevskyian ambition, Bread for the Baker's Child sets out to probe the large questions of good and evil, culpability and sacrifice, and the meaning of suffering.

In this tale of two lives immutably intertwined, Sister Rachel is a nun in a failing order, a painter with a history of madness, devoted to her dying Mother General. Her brother Phillip is an accountant serving time for embezzlement, a man capable of great violence and anger who has turned his back not simply on the church, but faith as well. They have nothing in common except for a shared childhood tragedy.

Or do they? In this masterful display of structural precision, Caldwell slowly unravels the complementary nature of these two lives—at first glance hermetically sealed from one another—until their shared fate becomes a symbiotic relationship, as though they were two sides of the same coin, intersecting and reflecting one another. Through events operatic in tone and reach, Rachel and Phillip come to redefine our notions of love and kinship, and embody the human need for redemption and forgiveness.

Marketing plans for Bread for the Baker's Child:
• Author tour in Northeast area (New York City, Boston, Washington, D.C.).
• Newsletter, brochure, catalog, and postcard mailings.
• Advertisements in key literary and trade magazines.

Playwright and novelist, Joseph Caldwell is the author of four previous novels, The Uncle From Rome, Under the Dog Star, The Deer at the River, and In Such Dark Places. He twice held the John Golden Fellowship in Playwriting at Yale University's School of Drama, and was awarded The Rome Prize in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A brother and sister try to reconcile their inclinations toward good and evil in this rather muddled morality play that begins with Sister Rachel rejoicing about a large donation from her brother, Philip, that temporarily saves the troubled order she serves. Her happiness is tempered considerably when she learns that Philip, an accountant as well as a devoted amateur violinist, embezzled funds from his firm to get the money and has landed in prison. Caldwell spends the better part of the novel bouncing back and forth between Rachel's efforts to tend to the head of the order, who is dying from a terminal illness, and Philip's efforts to handle life in prison. The latter story is by far the more interesting, particularly when Philip is befriended by Starbuck, a frail young prisoner who seeks a physical relationship with Philip to protect himself from a pair of inmates whom he believes to be sexual predators. That relationship proves to be Philip's undoing, when a sadistic guard takes an interest in their coupling and his taunting of Starbuck finally drives Philip to an act of violence. Caldwell (In Such Dark Places, etc.) provides little background on either of his protagonists, throwing them into their respective moral quandaries so quickly that readers must scramble to catch up with their history, tendencies and psychological dispositions. This is a novel with some strong passages and intriguing moments, but the best episodes drift unmoored, only tenuously connected to each other.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Although rich with dramatic potential, this novel is ultimately disappointing. The two main characters Sister Rachel, a Catholic nun, and her brother, Phillip, an embezzler serving time in prison are certainly intriguing. And the themes of faith, sexuality, and violence that Caldwell (The Uncle from Rome) sets out to explore are promising as well. Alas, most of this dynamic potential is left undeveloped. The novel begins with Sister Rachel learning that her order has been accepting donations of money from Phillip, most of which has probably been embezzled. Meanwhile, a young man seeking protection from two predatory inmates asks Phillip to pose as his lover. After Phillip reluctantly accepts, the two really do fall in love, setting the stage for an act of violence. Caldwell clearly wants these stories to interconnect, but he can't make it happen. And, unfortunately, we don't really see what larger meaning the reader is supposed to draw from the lives of these characters, especially as it relates to the major themes Caldwell introduces. Not recommended. Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 284 pages
• Publisher: Sarabande Books; 1 edition (January 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1889330663
• ISBN-13: 978-1889330662
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,272,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Intense and Thought Provoking, April 14, 2002

By 

Laure-Madeleine - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bread for the Baker's Child: A Novel (Hardcover)

When informed of his sister Aggie's emotional collapse following a tragic fire that had caused the demise of thirty eighth-graders at the school where she was Sister Superior, Phillip 'Peppy' Manrahan was faced with a Heinz dilemma. Aggie, a nun who went by the religious name of Sister Mary Rachel, needed electroconvulsive shock therapy in order to cure her of screaming fits and grief-induced psychosis. Because Phillip held a long-simmering rage and resentment over the lack of respect that his corporation's superiors had shown him, he decided to use his expertise as an accountant to embezzle company funds to pay for Aggie's treatment. His thievery didn't stop there. He continued to cook the company books as a way to endow the Order of the Sisters of the Annunciation with funds for a new wing of the college library and much-needed repairs for their schools, convents, and Motherhouse - more than one million dollars in all. The Order had graciously accepted these donations from their anonymous benefactor, not knowing that he was a thief and Sister Rachel's younger brother. Later, when Phillip heard about the cancellation of an office colleague's health insurance because he had AIDS, Phillip's rage at the company resurfaced, and he resorted to embezzlement again to help Jack. After Jack's death, Phillip was caught for stealing the twenty-three thousand dollars that he had given Jack and was sentenced to prison for four years.

There, Phillip, a handsome gay man in his fifties, became the protector of another inmate, Talford Starbuck, a younger man with a hideous disfigurement. At first, their hooking up was only a sham, designed to protect the fragile Starbuck from other inmates. As time went by, they fell in love. Then, a terrible chain of events caused several deaths and brought about Phillip's condemnation to death row, sentenced to die in the electric chair. At the same time that Phillip was doing his prison time, Sister Rachel was tending to her dying Mother General in an old mansion in an unnamed location. After Mother's death, the remaining half-dozen sisters in this moribund Order would be scattered to new assignments, and the Motherhouse would be bulldozed.

In alternating passages, the reader is swept along from prison to convent and back again, with intricate flashbacks and recalled memories that serve to provide insights and clues to the characters' motivations and situations. The narrative structure resembles a fugue, with themes stated and restated, then varied, then counterpointed. One overarching theme in the novel is taken from Scripture, from Saint Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, where he exhorts them to abide by what was known later as the Enchiridion and reminds them of what the Church would later call the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love (or charity, depending on the translation). 'If I have not charity' is the responsorial thread that is woven through the narrative. A second overarching theme is the 'Magnificat' from the gospel of Luke, which is Mary's response to the Annunciation: 'My soul gives glory to the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.' A third overarching theme is the Last Supper.

The title of the novel, 'Bread for the Baker's Child' is echoed in its epigraph: 'No one is worse shod than the shoemaker's child' and is repeated throughout in its gentle insistence on charity. The novel portrays many acts of charity. Sister Rachel made two bereavement calls: one to Mrs. Levy, the mother of one of the children who burned to death in the school fire, and the other to the mother of the murdered prison guard, (which reminded me of the visits that Sister Helen Prejean, the author of 'Dead Man Walking,' has made to the bereaved families of the men that she had counseled on Death Row). At the most intense part of the novel, Aggie and Peppy prayed together for those who had died.

Not since reading Mark Salzman's 'Lying Awake,' have I come across such a realistic portrayal of nuns, as is found in the characters of Mother General and Sister Rachel. All romantic and idealistic notions of religious life are brushed aside to show these two wonderful flawed human beings who also happen to be nuns. In the character of Phillip, one finds a gay man who has turned away from the Church because he could not be accepted there. Intense irony is present in the prison scenes with a priest who is too tired to tend his flock and a nun who wants to be there but is not allowed because she's not a member of the clergy.

'Bread for a Baker's Child' by Joseph Caldwell is a short novel that one might read from different perspectives. From one point of view, 'Bread' is a Catholic novel that examines the conscience of contemporary Catholicism; from another, it is a morality tale of sin and salvation; further, it is a Dostoyevskian narrative of crime and punishment; moreover, it is a story of redemptive suffering; and finally, one might find here an articulation of the mystical union between God, and a brother and sister, whose souls and destinies are forever entwined. Still, I do not exhaust the possibilities of meaning that one might find here, for to do so would require much rereading and reflection. Mr. Caldwell has been away from the literary scene for ten years, and, with this amazing book, he has returned.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Bread for the Baker's Child: A Novel, January 6, 2009

By 

Yolaine (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Bread for the Baker's Child: A Novel (Paperback)

Bread for the Baker's Child is a compelling and haunting book...
I purchased several copies of this book to give as gifts to friends (which included his most recent novel titled The Pig Did It), one of whom emailed me recently to say that from the very first page, he was under "the charm, the spell..." and thus wanted to know where I had found such treasures (I also gave him a copy of The Pig Did It)!
Mr. Caldwell is truly an extraordinary writer. His writing is exquisite and his story telling power is nothing short of amazing. Thus, I recommend his books highly. In fact, my friend also said that he intends on getting his other books as well.

Yolaine

Brooklyn, NY

3.0 out of 5 stars Interesting but not inspiring, November 1, 2011

By 

RUHU "Eclectic" (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Bread for the Baker's Child: A Novel (Paperback)

Perhaps I ask too much of this book, but it read a bit too much like a young adult story - simplistic and lacking in depth. On the other hand, it can be difficult to write from the point of view of a child and keep an adult audience.