Star Bright!: A Christmas Story [Mass Market Paperback]

Andrew M. Greeley (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2, 2004

It's beginning to look a lot like an American Christmas: unpleasant relatives, miserable travel, a slobbering dog-and one "harmless American of Irish origins," Jack Flanigan, who is reluctantly falling in love with a young Russian woman studying at Harvard.

She's spending Christmas alone in a foreign country, so he invites the dark-eyed beauty home to Chicago for the holiday. Even though it isn't Christmas in the Russian Orthodox calendar, she accepts!

What happens when she gets to Chicago and caught in the maelstrom of commercialized Yuletide? Enough to say, there's a tree, and a feast, and midnight Mass, and a gaggle of contentious Flanigans of all ages-who have the merriest Christmas ever-and nothing will ever be quite the same for any of them.

Especially for Jack.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

A Christmas tale from priest and best-selling author Greeley.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Kirkus Reviews

Prolific Father Greeley (Summer at the Lake, p. 401) takes a stab at It's a Wonderful Christmas and comes up . . . all charm and wit. Good Irish-Catholic Jack Flanigan, a third-year Russian major at Boston College, sees a beautiful, sad-eyed visiting student reading a Russian paper on a bench in Harvard Square and takes her out for tea and doughnuts. Her face spectacularly exotic, Odessa Tatiana Alexseevna Shyuskulya, an orphan, is in the States on a scholarship. Not long ago, her communist atheism was overwhelmed by God's grace descending upon her, making her a total believer . . . and far more comfortable with the idea of Her (God) being in every room and sitting at every table than good Irish-Catholic Jack can bear. When 21-year-old Odessa believes something, a force of nature fills her. So perhaps Jack has acted thoughtlessly in inviting her home for Christmas in Chicago with his good Irish family? Dad, a surgeon going off to Bosnia for Christmas, is a shanty Irish bigot. Brother Ed is a tall handsome jerk who fancies himself a University of Chicago intellectual. Sister Stephanie, a boring, spoiled-lazy, very beautiful flake, has an idiot husband, Joe, with a Harvard degree, who's a substitute teacher with longings to act and write, while teenage sister Brigid smokes pot and thinks she understands everything while understanding hardly half. Meantime, the main mode of conversation for Jack's lawyer mother, even during family brawls, is the cross-exam. This already hangs like a full Christmas bag, and Greeley distributes his dialogue masterfully. Though Odessa's innocence proves unbeatable, tension fades as the only question left becomes: Will Greeley find some conflict to resolve? (He doesn't.) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Forge Books (November 2, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765349817
• ISBN-13: 978-0765349811
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,026,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

A native of Chicago, Father Andrew M. Greeley, is a priest, distinguished sociologist and bestselling author. He is professor of social sciences at the University of Chicago and the University of Arizona, as well as Research Associate at the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago. His current sociological research focuses on current issues facing the Catholic Church-including celibacy of priests, ordination of women, religious imagination, and sexual behavior of Catholics.Father Greeley received the S.T.L. in 1954 from St. Mary of Lake Seminary. His graduate work was done at the University of Chicago, where he received the M.A. Degree in 1961 and the Ph.D. in 1962.Father Greeley has written scores of books and hundreds of popular and scholarly articles on a variety of issues in sociology, education and religion. His column on political, church and social issues is carried by the Chicago Sun Times and many other newspapers. He stimulates discussion of neglected issues and often anticipates sociological trends. He is the author of more than thirty bestselling novels and an autobiography, Furthermore!: Confessions of a Parish Priest.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A True Little Spiritual Classic, December 6, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Star Bright: A Christmas Story (Hardcover)

Greeley's Irish Chicago meets sexy lay Russian Orthodox women's Christian mysticism somewhere between Boston College and Harvard Yard. Its improbability viz the Greeley corpus actually helps him compress a short, simple, yet spiritually sublime plot-and-reflections. (No Ryan family-tree to keep straight in your head!) If Odessa/Tatiana doesn't "seduce" you in many different (good!) ways, get your head, heart, spirit, and hormone-levels examined!

This book is little, but read it nice and slow, sometimes a page a day when herself is showing boyfriend Jack, his disgruntled family, and us a truer world-next-door spiritually. And read it over and over...maybe every December during the crush of the holidays. (Deeper than that Christmas pageant story they put on TV back in the '80s.) You'll find more than one new gem each time through--'pearls of great price,' for no great price! And it might just improve your life...and that of your significant others! Give it to a friend or two, too.

Profound, fun, cross-cultural, sexy but not "steamy" (Darn!), not a murder mystery but that's OK; further developments in Greeley's study and reporting of 'normal' Christians' approach to life. Technically, some typos and words missing, but it's usually clear what it is, so you lose no meaning. And stay with the meaning, because it's overflowing with it! And hardback is OK because it'll get used over and over for years to come. Sounds like he's working on a series of compressed, reflective, theological Christmas-y novels; great idea!

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A lovely Christmas gift, December 7, 2004

By 

L. L. Holmes (Butte, MT United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Star Bright!: A Christmas Story (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm a sucker for a Christmas story, and an admirer of Greeley's work. No one makes family dynamics more fascinating, or has a greater appreciation for women. This is an offbeat little love story, with love being the operative word. Tatiana, the Russian student Irish Catholic Jack takes home to meet the folks in Chicago for Christmas, is a magical heroine who brings joy and hope to a dysfunctional family. It leaves you smiling and believing in the wonder of the season.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!, December 19, 2005

By 

Donna K. "bookcrosser" (Long Island, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Bright!: A Christmas Story (Mass Market Paperback)

Wow! A wonderful immersion into both the Irish-American Catholic and the Russian Orthodox cultures, this little book is full of Christmas spirit! While taking a class over at Harvard University, Boston College student Jack Flanigan meets an enchanting beauty named Tatiana. The two strike up an unlikely but sweetly romantic friendship. Jack reluctantly invites her to Chicago to spend Christmas with his large and quite boisterous family, fearing that the deeply religious Tatiana will be turned off by the commercialism and overwhelmed by the dysfunctional crowd. But as Tatiana has found a way into confirmed bachelor Jack's heart, she also manages to win over his family.

There are no words to describe how much I loved this story. It was very well-written, with wonderful characterizations, descriptive settings, and positive dialogue. This couple, who personify true love, as well as the irresistable Flanigan family, will stay with me long after I put this book down.