North of Hope [Hardcover]

Jon Hassler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 5, 1990

"Hassler's brilliance has always been his ability to achieve the depth of real literature through such sure-handed, no-gimmicks, honest language that the result appears effortless."
THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
After more than twenty years in the priesthood, Father Frank Healy is going home. But what he finds at the battered Our Lady's Church are very few believers and Libby Girard, a woman from his past, whom he thought he'd never see again. But Libby's life is unraveling, and as she becomes dependent on him, the lives around them erupt in a tangle of drugs and despair, alcoholism and death. Ultimately, Frank's vocation is tested at its weakest place: his continuing love for Libby.


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As he has repeatedly been told, it was the deathbed wish of Frank Healy's mother that he become a priest. In the frozen reaches of northern Minnesota in 1949, Frank, a serious, studious youngster, is tempted from that vocation only by Libby Girard, a schoolmate whose violent home life does not impair her spectacular beauty. Libby marries a farmer and bears a daughter who grows to be a mentally ill femme fatale; Frank enters the priesthood. Twenty years later when Father Frank returns to his hometown parish to serve among townsfolk and Ojibwa Indians on the nearby reservation, Libby is there, too, with her third husband, a slimy, drug-dealing doctor, who has been sent by court order to work for the Indian Health Service. Although somewhat slow-going until the halfway mark, this increasingly evocative novel then picks up speed and acquires depth, spinning out an alcohol-soused tale of heartbreak, strained faith and sordid intrigue. Hassler ( Grand Opening ) beautifully limns each character, from the curmudgeonly parish housekeeper touched by a sweet and funny older priest, to a stepfather sick and selfish enough to heedlessly destroy two lives.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Plagued by a dubious sense of vocation, Father Frank Healy requests reassignment to his hometown parish and the nearby Ojibway reservation church. Here he encounters Libby Pearsall, the passionate woman whom he has silently loved since childhood, and she and her troubled daughter soon become his greatest personal and pastoral challenge. Hassler's narrative style and implied values are old-fashioned but solid. He acknowledges evil and portrays it convincingly in the form of drug-dealing, greed, and murder, but he also displays the power of loving kindness. Some humorous scenes of parish life recall the delightful stories of J.F. Powers, and, like Powers, Hassler treats Roman Catholic concerns in such a way that their appeal is truly catholic.
- Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 518 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; 1st edition (September 5, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345369106
• ISBN-13: 978-0345369109
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,936,706 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great character novel, August 3, 2007

By 

Jay Young (Austin, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: North of Hope (Loyola Classics) (Paperback)

If you enjoy books with strongly-developed characters, then "North of Hope" is for you. It begins with Frank Healy, a young man with an aspiration to the priesthood and living in Minnesota. He falls in love with Libby Girard, a beautiful local girl. Unfortunately, Libby marries a local bully, Vernon, the guy who got her pregnant. Frank, upon learning that his mother's dying words were "I want Frank to be a priest," decides to enter the seminary. A couple of years into his formation, Libby visits Frank and wants him to leave the seminary and marry her. Frank refuses, and as Libby sadly drives away, Frank pleads to God to keep her out of his life.

Twenty years later, when the school Frank had been teaching at since his ordination closes down, Frank experiences a vocational crisis. He requests a transfer to his hometown parish, which is granted. With a twist of divine fate, Frank encounters Libby once again in the local Objiway Reservation's medical facility. The remainder of the book consists of Frank struggling to find a relationship with Libby that is loving yet not romantic, and helping Libby's troubled daughter Verna. Along the way we encounter characters such as Libby's drug-dealing husband, the sleazy Judge Bigelow, and the overprotective Eunice Pfeiffer.

North of Hope is one of those rare novels that stays with you long after you've finished it. The final resolution is effective, though probably not what many readers will want. Hassler could have used the book to uncritically praise or rant against priestly celibacy, but he doesn't; he trusts the readers to make their own decisions. Highly recommended.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Heartbreakingly beautiful, November 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: North of Hope (Paperback)

I read this book several years ago when it was first published and have not been able to get it out of my mind. It is one of the most heartbreakingly beautiful books I have ever read; one comes away with the sad realization that the characters are, indeed, north of hope. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading of the human condition; the book is quite melancholy, but not depressing. Mr. Hassler has a rare gift.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bittersweet melancholy, December 7, 1999

By 

:) "chuckamok" (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: North of Hope (Paperback)

Jon Hassler is a writer of serious fiction, whose narratives are nonetheless plainspoken and straightforward. He does a masterful job of capturing the melancholy of a midwestern winter, of lives permanently mired in the permafrost. He sets a tone similar to Annie Proulx, difficult yet absorbing. Not to be read at the beach on a hot summer day, but curled up under a comforter on a bleak December night.