Customer Reviews

The Faithful Narrative of a Pastor's Disappearance: A Novel

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A few drops of John Cheever. A jigger of John Updike. Top up the glass with satire. And what you have is a brew all Anastas's own. Yes, we're back in the New England of Emerson, Hawthorne and Thoreau. And we're reading about a strange mixture of adultery and church. "The Scarlet Letter?" Hardly. "The Faithful Narrative of a Pastor's Disappearance" moves from a tongue-in-cheek look at yuppie lifestyles off Rte. 128 to a sensitive portrait of a woman who would seem, 2001-style, to Have It All. This is a fascinating and, I think, original look at suburbia today.

The Faithful Narrative is disturbingly on-target depiction of some of the spiritual soul-lessness of suburban, upper middle class life done in a satirically hilarious manner that makes the novel a terrific read. The novel is really a look at suburban life in it's most unflattering light. I enjoyed the novel--it can be very funny and on target at times. It reminded me a bit of American Beauty in that both satirically strip all the sugarcoating off of suburban life. The novel is just one side of suburbia, and if you don't mind a little sarcasm and satire, I highly recommend this novel.

If you are already a member of the Anastas cult, you will love this book! And if you don't know Anastas but enjoy novels which are stylistically unique, you will find yourself intrigued. Anastas, with no pretense of scholarly reticence (some might even say he shows off), creates syntactical fireworks within fireworks here, sentences which take on lives of their own, and mountains of very specific images in his descriptions. He applies a verbal machete to the misguided aspirations and the pretentions of suburbia, from SUV's and designer homes to the patronizing attitudes and unchristian behavior among churchgoers. Few readers will be able to resist his narrative pull.

Anastas's astounding abilities, however, are sometimes given such free rein that they seem to gallop off under their own power. Structurally, the book is loosey-goosey, lacking a sense of purpose clear enough to control both the plot and Anastos's quixotic tendency to pursue new directions. The opening chapter seems to be a paean to his own talent more than a serious introduction to his characters and setting, the chapter consisting of three pages of text divided into just two spectacular, long sentences. The reader becomes more intrigued with whether the sentences will end than with their content. (See the Amazon excerpt.) Initially a broad satire directed at some easy and obvious targets, the book employs flat characters who serve as examples of suburban types, rather than as individuals.

The satire is not sustained throughout, however. Bethany Caruso, the main character, develops into a much more a sympathetic character than is consistent with satire, though she never becomes a fully round character, either. Even the mystery of the pastor's disappearance, which serves throughout as the unifying thread and provides a stage for the satire, ultimately turns out not to be the primary story at all. This is really the tale of Bethany, her marriage, and her life in suburbia, and much of the church satire and many of the characters associated with the pastor's disappearance turn out to be irrelevant to her central story.

This is a book of many delights which will gain Anastas a legion of new fans. Students of writing who enjoy observing how an author limits his subject and develops his themes through careful plot construction and use of detail may find themselves a bit nonplussed, however, by Anastas's insistent march to his own drummer. Mary Whipple

Too bad it had to end...reading this book was like being with a friend. It is amazing how the author is able to pull you into the lives of the people of Pilgrim Congregational Church UCC, in W_______-, Mass, and draws the reader into the lives of the congregation and makes the reader involved. The book, in some ways, is about the disappearance of Thomas, the bewildered, melancholy, amorous pastor of the church. On a deeper level, the book is about the people who are left behind, most of all, Bethany, his illicit love. The book is funny in spots, touching in others. Initially, the style of Anastas, with his seemingly interminable run on sentences, is disconcerting. However, once you get the hang of how he writes, the book totally involves you.

What makes this book so very appealing for me is that I'm the pastor of a church in the same denomination. Anastas seems to have a great handle on our little quirks making the whole book so very real. Read this if you desire---but don't dare put it down for too long!!!

On its surface, Ben Anastas's "Faithful Narrative of a Pastor's Disappearance" is a brisk satire chronicling the reactions of a white, liberal Massachusetts church to their black minister's disappearance in a cloud of scandal. And even if one were to look no farther than the satire, the novel would be a stunning success. Mr. Anastas sends up middle-class, left-wing Christian values with keen insight, a light touch, and the mordant wit readers will recall from his earlier novel, "An Underachiever's Diary"; his is the rare authorial voice that can veer into downright mean dark-mindedness yet carry the reader happily along with it. (In this way Mr. Anastas calls to mind Thomas Bernhard, who, while he may be one of the gloomiest novelists in recent memory, can also be one of the funniest.) While he pokes fun at the members of this community, however, Mr. Anastas simultaneously allows them to emerge as ever more subtle and real. What begins, then, as a smart satire, in which one recognizes much but empathizes with almost nothing, slowly loses the sharpest of its edges, and becomes a clear-sighted and open-hearted testament to the needs and longings of ordinary people. Do not expect this to be a novel of cheap epiphany -- the minister doesn't skulk back into town, and the members of his flock don't all realize the error of their ways -- but it is, like the work of Jonathan Edwards (who provides both the book's epigraph and a model for understanding its graceful, slightly antiquated sentence structure), a thoughtful inquiry into the growth of the soul (both that of the individual and that of the community). This may sound like a fusty topic, but therein lies much of this eloquent novel's appeal. If you have ever doubted the integrity of contemporary American writers, Mr. Anastas's spare and beautiful prose will go a long way toward restoring your faith.

A few well-turned sentences and phrases do not rescue this effort. The heroine is a singularly unattractive character (only her children are worse) and it is difficult to imagine anyone falling for her. It is, however, terribly easy to understand why the pastor disappears after reading his last encounter with her; a protracted whine that belongs on an analyst's couch, not in fiction. The telling is better than the tale.

I had high hopes for this novel when I read of its religious themes and satirical voice, and I was further excited by the Gogolian beginning. But, apart from a few laughs, the book is really nothing more than pointless fluff for bored, middle-class suburban housewives. The author could've done better.

Not as good as An Underachievers Diary, same writing style as this first book, but this style I found ineffective for this work. Ben's run-on sentences (too many) can complicate the ideas and feelings of his characters.

I"m knowledgeable about pastors and even know some who disappear. Mr. Anastas has pictured the small liberal church as it is. He also brings a spirituality to the reader as the church year is followed. Bethany( a favorite town of Jesus) was a little hard to understand but she is probably typical of the mother and wife who married too early and is looking for love. She never comes to terms with the pastor's disappearance, but her life does change as she relates to her husband and children in new ways.