Some Rise by Sin

March 20, 2017
Expanding on several of the themes of his 2009 novel Crossers, Caputo’s latest is a thought-provoking story of unthinkable brutality. Former art history professor Timothy Riordan is the Catholic pastor of San Patricio, a remote village in the Mexican state of Sonora. The foothills of the Sierra Madre range in which San Patricio is located are torn by violent conflicts between drug cartels, local militias, the federal army, and police. Widely respected by the townspeople, Riordan also has the ear of military and intelligence authorities. But rather than helping him fulfill his call to serve and save his flock, Riordan’s network of connections produces deepening moral dilemmas. How, if at all, should information gained from positions of trust—including the confessional—be used in the hope of ameliorating suffering? What is the meaning of God in an apparently demonic world? As an emerging cartel called the Brotherhood wraps trafficking, murder, and mutilation in religious imagery, Riordan faces decisions that test him. A secondary narrative about expat doctor Lisette Moreno never fully gels, and the intricacies of Mexico’s shifting power balance can be difficult to follow. Yet poised as he is between unforgiving vows, lofty ideals, and searing chaos, Caputo’s Riordan is an everyman whose struggles illuminate the contradictions of human nature and the mysteries of faith.

March 1, 2017
A novel that couldn't be more timely: the story of culture clash and compromise in Mexico.Caputo's eighth novel revolves around two Americans, a priest and a physician, in the Mexican village of San Patricio. This is not, the author tells us, "Cancun [or] Puerta Vallarta"; rather, it is the Mexico of our darkest, wall-building fantasies, "one vast bad neighborhood, East L.A. or the South Side of Chicago on steroids." Lest such an image seem stereotypical, it's not--because Caputo is an acute observer of human disorder and disarray. The priest here, Father Timothy Riordan, is conflicted: about his celibacy, about his faith, and most of all about his tenuous position between the townspeople and the authorities. The doctor, Lisette Moreno, is more settled, but that is to some extent due to her privilege; she has come to Mexico by choice. Complicating everything is the presence of the Brotherhood, a gang of narcos so casually brutal that their threats and violence are never anything but believable. The moral landscape is reminiscent of Robert Stone, particularly his 1981 novel A Flag for Sunrise, which also revolves in part around a priest adrift in chaos south of the border. Stone's perspective, though, is more apocalyptic, or perhaps, most accurately, touched with madness; among the challenges (and rewards) of his writing is the sense not just that the center isn't holding, but also that there is no center to hold. Caputo is a more traditional novelist, and his aims are, finally, less ambitious; for all its detailed evocation of life in the village, his book is more or less a character portrait, or a pair of character portraits, in which the Americans are always in the light. That makes for a more focused effort, especially in regard to Riordan, whose self-flagellations (both real and imagined) largely drive the narrative. "His anger drained away," Caputo writes of the priest, "and a gloom dropped over him, like a hood over a man about to be hanged." Ultimately, however--and despite the force of the writing--this makes the novel too neat, too predictable. Caputo is taking on a messy territory, in which there are no answers, and everyone must do what they need to get along. This is the promise of his novel, that such disruption is contagious, but in the end, the book portrays less the corruption of a tarnished world than the blight of a single errant soul. This is a compelling novel that wraps up too neatly, belying the uncertainty and turmoil at its core.

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Starred review from February 15, 2017
Father Timothy Riordan, a motorcycle-riding Franciscan friar, shepherds the flock in San Patricio, a small Sonoran town caught in the crossfire between La Mariposa, a drug lord and self-styled religious leader who heads the terrifying narcotics gang La Fraternidad, and a priest-hating, possibly psychopathic army captain advised by a corrupt policeman. When Riordan is asked to reveal secrets from the confessional to help flush out narcos, he refusesuntil he thinks he sees an opportunity to serve the greater good. But in a time and place where even routine encounters can turn suddenly deadly, consequences are difficult to anticipate. Free-clinic doctor Lizette Moreno, who is nonreligiously called to serve the poor, faces her own difficult choices of love and service, wondering whether she makes a difference. Pulitzer-winner Caputo returns to the world of his last novel, Crossers (2009), writing about the complex and chaotic border zone with a reporter's eye and novelist's heart; few settings provide such depressing but rich fodder for an exploration of faith and morality. An old-fashioned novel in the best way, a work of genuine heft, Some Rise by Sin explores the search for meaning in a place where the stakes are highest and does so with unwavering focus. At 75, Caputo remains a master of his craft.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Caputo's infrequent books are events; his last one, The Longest Road (2013) was a New York Times best-seller. Reader awareness will build with national media attention and author appearances.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017

A journalist who shared a Pulitzer for team reporting and perhaps best known for his memoir A Rumor of War, Caputo also writes sharp, politically informed fiction. Here, an American missionary priest in a Mexican village breaks his vows by helping the villagers resist a drug cartel.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2017

Caputo, whose long and distinguished career as a journalist and author includes nine novels, three memoirs, and a number of general nonfiction titles, is probably still best known for his 1977 Vietnam memoir, A Rumor of War, which asked troubling questions about the conflict that continue to resonate with readers today. This title portrays an American missionary priest, Father Riordan, who is serving a poor parish in San Patricio, Mexico. As in A Rumor of War, this novel features a morally compromised political environment, where competing drug lords, vigilante groups, and corrupt federal troops create a horrific no-man's-land ruled by violence, intimidation, and daily atrocities. Human life has very little worth in this part of Mexico, and this book centers on Riordan's attempts to stay true to his faith and his vows while living in a world poisoned to its core by corruption and greed. Caputo skillfully brings to life the complex existential drama of this predicament. VERDICT Powerful and timely, this novel is especially recommended for fans of politically focused literary fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 11/17/16.]--Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.