What to Wear to See the Pope: Stories - Hardcover

Lehner, Christine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786713291 ISBN 13: 9780786713295

Publisher: Carroll & Graf, 2004

Synopsis

The Codwell family is a jovial, tight-knit clan that dines together often and for whom dinner table conversation is repartee as art form. But subtext runs deep, patience wears thin, and recriminations run rampant. A conflicted Catholic and amateur linguist, Ursula Codwell’s passion for saints and semantics is surpassed only by the affection she feels for her family—and that includes her precious bulldog. Brought up in what she refers to as the “fraught and schizoid tradition of Belgian Catholicism,” Ursula is herself rather fraught and schizoid, personality traits that often threaten to overwhelm her children and her ostensibly tolerant Unitarian husband (“What he generally had to say about the saints was not worth repeating”), not to mention herself. Her indecisiveness and excessive attention to detail lead her to become fixated on matters such as what to wear to see the Pope when he comes to her hometown in New York’s Hudson Valley or reclaiming her surgically removed teratomas from the pathology lab. Reminiscent of Allegra Goodman’s The Family Markowitz, Christine Lehner’s What to Wear to See the Pope is a dead-on portrait of fragile family connections and crises of the soul, brought to life in ten wonderful interconnected stories.

About this title

Book Description

Published in hardcover by Carroll & Graf, 2004, 0-7867-1329-1

From the Back Cover

"A delightful romp through one woman's life . . . Anyone who loves to look up words in a dictionary, play games at the dinner table, and find humor in even the darker corners of life should read this book."--The Charlotte Observer

A conflicted Catholic and amateur linguist, Ursula Codwell has a passion for saints and semantics that is surpassed only by the affection she feels for her husband, her children, and her precious bulldog. Her indecisiveness and attention to detail lead her to become fixated on matters such as reclaiming her surgically removed tissue from the lab or deciding what to wear to see the pope when he visits her hometown in New York's Hudson Valley. In ten interconnected stories--all narrated by Ursula--What to Wear to See the Pope tells the highly entertaining story of a strained but loving family.

"Lehner gives Ursula an original voice, captivating, convincing . . . as she veers from tangent to tangent, from saints to salads, from hell to a hell-bent destructive kitchen knife."--The Boston Globe

"Thoroughly enjoyable . . . A full portrait of an intelligent woman . . . who goes through some trying situations (much more serious than dressing for the pope) and always emerges with her spirit intact."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Christine Lehner's stories have been published in North American Review, Image, and Southwest Review. She lives in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

About this edition

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0786713291
• ISBN 13: 9780786713295
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224