Praying to a Laughing God: A Novel [Hardcover]

Kevin McColley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 7, 1998

Set in the heartland of America, Praying to a Laughing God is the remarkable and moving story of old friendships, new love, deeply hidden secrets, and the discovery of truths. It is about the death of dreams and the birth of hope; about a disappearing way of life and the reaffirmation of the human spirit. It is startling, provocative, and deeply compelling.

When Clark Holstrom goes each morning to open the hardware store he has operated for years on the main street of Credibull, Minnesota, he asks himself why he even bothers. What business he hasn't lost to the new Wal-Mart, his hapless son Walter -- who has taken over the operation of the store -- has managed to chase away. Both the town and the way of life Clark has known for the past seventy years are dying; only the memories are left, and soon they will fade as well.

What is best about Credibull is the comfort its residents take in the repetition of their daily lives; what is worst is the deadening monotony that has thrown a stupor over the town. So when a hotshot journalist, the author of several bestselling and exploitative true-crime books, announces that he is coming to Credibull to investigate a forty-year-old unsolved murder and make the story the basis for his next opus, the town is thrown into a frenzy of gossip and speculation.

When Clark hears the news of the writer's plans, however, his reaction is one of pure dread. He remembers the murder only too well, and he knows that a reopening of the investigation could only be bad news for his best friend, Maynard Tewle, the man who everyone thought to be the murderer, but against whom the State could never make an adequate case. Maynard's health has been failing for some time, and Clark knows that the trauma of having to endure more prying into his life might be enough to kill him.

And indeed the writer's arrival in Credibull does prove to be the catalyst for a change, not only in the lives of Clark and Maynard but of virtually everyone who has been a part of that town. As layer after layer of the story surrounding the murder is peeled away, old realities become myths, and secrets escape that lay bare the fears and hatreds that have been hidden for years. Before it is over, Clark Holstrom will find himself alone in a world that he can hardly recognize, clinging to the only hope he has left -- a love so unexpected yet so real that he can only wonder in disbelief at his good fortune.

Both a poignant and moving story of old love lost and new love found, and a startling story of murder and betrayal, complete with a surprise ending, Praying to a Laughing God marks the adult fiction debut of a stunningly talented young writer.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

As a mystery novel, McColley's adult fiction debut (he's the author of several young-adult novels) is a slow, static affair. But as a character study about the difficulties of dealing with old age, there's more than enough finely wrought, heartfelt writing to hold a reader's interest. Clark Holstrom's quiet retirement in rural Credibull, Minn., is threatened when a famous true-crime writer reopens the unsolved murder case in which Clark's best friend, Maynard, was once a suspect. At the same time, Maynard's wife dies and stroke-induced senility puts Maynard in the same nursing home where Clark's wife, Nora, lies in a deep coma. Clark has a lot about which to be depressed: his friend's misfortunes; the failure of his middle-aged son, who inherited the family hardware store; and his stale marriage to Nora. To assuage his pain, he stumbles into an affair with an elderly, artistic widow who cheers him up, but even this bit of good luck backfires when Clark deceives her about Nora's condition and then tries to introduce her to his son. The murder puzzle is resolved with a surprise at the end, but what makes this novel work are the fine characterizations and the author's realistic portrayal of old age.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

A YA author (Switch, 1997, etc.) crosses over into adult fiction with a richly told tale of a buried crime in tiny Credibull, Minnesota. The story opens on the bench of the feedstore with the amusing crosstalk of best friends Maynard Tewle, 78, and Clark Holstrom, 72, as they chew over a local burglar's having stolen a VCR. Maynard complains that ``People don't give a damn about nothing no more.'' Well, the townsfolk have clearly forgiven Maynard for apparently having murdered Albert Wilson with a hammer some 30 years ago. The old man still maintains his innocenceafter all, though nobody was ever tried, everyone in town knows that a crazy, lusty Catholic priest, Father Kenneth Callahan, confessed to the killing on his deathbed. Now, however, a true-crime writer from Chicago, Ted Lewell, thinks he knows something about that long-ago case and turns up in Credibull to research a book about the true culprit. Meanwhile, Clark Holstrom's wife Nora lies dying in a nursing home, having lost both legs to frostbite when she slipped in the middle of winter while taking out the garbage and was only found much later, unconscious. Comatose Nora hasn't spoken for a year, although Clark detects a peculiar glint in her eye as it stares past him. Along with this, Clark, who spends much of his time caring for the historical society's museum, has turned his hardware store over to his overweight, bald, bumbling son Walter, who tells his dad that business is hopping. Clark knows, though, that Walter is a poor businessman and suspects he may be sinking the store with inept management as he tries to fight the newly opened Wal-Mart by creating a computer section. Eventually, Lewell drives the already none-too-stable Maynard around the bend, convincing him that he's in fact the guilty party, even though the wise reader suspects otherwise. As funny and sinister as the Coens' take on Minnesota in Fargo. Well done, indeed. -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster (April 7, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684837617
• ISBN-13: 978-0684837611
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,265,346 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars No laughter, here..., January 18, 2000

By 

Just_Karen (Portland, Oregon) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Praying to a Laughing God: A Novel (Hardcover)

I thought this book might be a paean to aging, but it isn't. It is an extended and tedious look at what happens to a man when his testosterone supply diminishes. The hero of the story moves through a fairly uneventful life in a small Minnesota town. He must face the fact that he is aging, his wife is dying, and his son is a failure. But sex is the real subject; every conversation moves to sex, every observation is tinged with sexual particulars, every reverie eventually ends in a backseat or a bedroom. The story is told with palpable distaste for its characters, with particularly unforgiving eye turned to their physical flaws. There is a murder subplot and a romance, but these are expressed in images of masturbating priests and wrinkled, aging thighs. Eventually, we learn whodunit. We also learn that the ebbing of testosterone is a GOOD thing, since men are so horrible when acting under its influence. This is an especially disappointing book because the quality of the writing is excellent.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A moving and poignant novel and a very good mystery, March 23, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Praying to a Laughing God: A Novel (Hardcover)

True crime writer Ted Lewell arrives in the small town of Credibull, Minnesota, researching his next effort: the real story behind the murder of Albert Wilson, who was killed almost four decades ago. When septagenariun Clark Holstrom learns what the famous author plans to do, he begins to worry about how this will affect his ailing friend, Maynard Tewle, a person who many townsfolk believe actually committed the murder. However, the state could never prove its case....

The who-done-it aspects of PRAYING TO A LAUGHING GOD are somewhat interesting, but are overwhelmed by the more poignant and brilliantly described harsh realities of aging. The characters are first rate and Kevin McColley, a renowned writer of young adult fiction, has gracefully moved into the adult world with this passionate, sentimental, and very melancholy ode to old age.

Harriet Klausner

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-written but frustratingly bleak, July 19, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Praying to a Laughing God: A Novel (Hardcover)

As a 32-year-old woman, at first I had a hard time getting into the main character (a 72-year-old man), but I kept going. The problem then became that the first half of this book was un-remittingly bleak. The writing is good and the plot becomes interesting or I would not have hung in there. A little light is introduced...but (I don't want to spoil the plot) it ends up being undeserved and that is the greatest frustration of all. Perhaps the author thought the point was that anyone can change but the ending seems to show that they haven't changed, or at least not enough.