The Brothers' Lot

February 14, 2011
The mix of dire experiences that goes into the education dished out at the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means adds up to a mordantly funny debut from Dublin native Holohan. Young Finbar Sullivan, newly arrived from Cork, finds himself at the mercy of priestly pedagogues, from the scheming Brother Loughlin to the sadistic Brother Kennedy, while trying to fit in among his cynical and abused classmates. The blighted prospects of post-WWII Dublin get a lightly satirical treatment, as with the teacher who sees a chance to dispense punishment as "the best excuse for vindictiveness that had come his way," or the adviser who lists "junior clerical assistant in the Department of Fisheries" as the brightest of grim career options, but Holohan's touch gets angrier as institutional decay transforms to rot, absurdity becomes bitterness, and depictions of characters and the school itself get etched with an increasingly brutal touch. The collapse of both the Order of the Brothers of Godly Coercion and the seat of tainted education they foist on their lower-middle-class pupils are fitting revenge, and the little hope Holohan holds out lends an acid edge to this cutting depiction of a system collapsing under the weight of its own corruption.

Starred review from May 1, 2011

What is the lot of the Brothers of Godly Coercion for Young Boys of Meager Means, fraught as they are by celibacy, repression, and guilt? Sadism, masochism, child abuse, more guilt, self-flagellation, alcoholism, paranoia, chain smoking, hypocrisy, and skullduggery. The benighted brothers and a variety of generally less sadistic lay teachers operate a school that is both figuratively and literally falling apart. They need a miracle to survive, and when a statuette of their founder, the Venerable Saorseach O'Rahilly, appears to bleed after a giant structural collapse, the Brothers start a campaign to save the school by proposing him for sainthood. Eventually, by actual miracles, good triumphs over evil at scores of similar schools. VERDICT Increasingly satirical, Holohan's writing seems informed by Frank McCourt, Flann O'Brien, and both Kingsley and Martin Amis, but he possesses his own distinct voice. Especially useful as therapy for recovering Catholics or to tweak apologists of the church, this impressive debut is highly recommended.--Jim Dwyer, Univ. of California Libs., Chico

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 1, 2011
Taking dead aim at the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church and the atmosphere of repression that allowed abuse to flourish, this first novel uses satire to stinging effect. At the Brothers of Godly Coercion School for Young Boys of Meager Means in Dublin, the brothers are desperate to repair their crumbling school. Behind their vaunted piety, they are a sad and pitiful lot, with a pedophile, an alcoholic, and a sadist among them. After the midnight ramblings of the mentally unstable Brother Boland end when the ceiling collapses, the head of the school decides to claim the mishap as a miracle, thereby drawing attention and much-needed funds. But the boys who attend the school are on to the brothers game and, despite near-constant physical abuse, draw great satisfaction from discovering all the devious ways they can test their teachers patience, from deftly stonewalling academic discussions to inventing profane versions of prayers. Terribly bleak and terribly funny, this skillful debut pays tribute to the irrepressible spirit of all the rebellious young boys who would not give in to authoritarian rule.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)