The Fifth Station: A Novel - Hardcover

McIlvoy, Kevin

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0912697768 ISBN 13: 9780912697765

Publisher: Algonquin Books, 1988

Synopsis

The death of their youngest brother and layoffs in the steel industry disrupt the lives of Michael and Luke, who become aimless wanderers

About this title

Reviews

At the fifth Station of the Cross, the Cyrenean helps Jesus carry the cross, but not for long. In this carefully wrought tale of three brothers who grow up in an Illinois steel town, Michael fails to help Matthew, the youngest, stay alive. And Luke, the oldest, fails to keep his promise of hope, leaving college and the family for a hobo's life in New Mexico. After Matthew dies, Michael also goes to New Mexico where he marries an Indian woman and has a child. Drinking more and more, he suddenly decides to write the story of Matthew's death, which occurred while the two were working overtime inside a nine-story foundry smokestack. McIlvoy weaves Michael's developing story, with its flashback to the brothers' early family life, with Luke's gradually growing willingness to love and hope again. Characters are vivid, not just the brothers but the steel workers in their daily lives and, particularly, Luke's hobo friends. Place is powerfully renderedthe desolate winter in New Mexico, the steel-town houses, bars and outdoor basketball courts with scraggly grass growing from the cracked cement, and the dark, breathing heat inside the smokestack. The brothers had been high-school basketball stars, known for their grace and promise. By the end of McIlvoy's story, much of that promise is restored; the grace is there throughout.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

McIlvoy's title refers to a station of the cross along Christ's route to Golgotha, and his story describes the collective passion of the McWelt family. With an alcoholic father and a mother who uses religion as an escape, the three McWelt sons grow up supporting one another with powerful but inarticulate love. At the steel mills, on the basketball courts, and in the neighborhood taverns of Meltenville, Illinois, these fraternal bonds are skillfully displayed. After the youngest brother dies inside a foundry smokestack, the two survivors are displaced both physically and emotionally and must forge new lives in the deserts of New Mexico. Though the scenes in Meltenville are strong and moving, those in New Mexico are slightly less effective. Albert E. Wilhelm, Tennessee Technological Univ., Cookeville
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Algonquin Books
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0912697768
• ISBN 13: 9780912697765
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 176