Book description
Taut, compelling, and remarkably assured, Hail Mary Corner
thrusts readers into unfamiliar territory past an emotional frontier
we all must cross: the uncertain ground between adolescence and adulthood.
High on a cliff above a pulp-mill town on Vancouver Island,
sixteen-year-old Bill MacAvoy and his friends lead cloistered lives
while other boys their age run free. it may be the fall of 1982, but
inside the walls of their Benedictine seminary they inhabit a medieval
world steeped in ritual and discipline--a place where blackrobed monks
move like shadows between doubt and faith.
Isolated from the outside, Bill and his friends develop a unique and
often hilarious culture. Schooled in the virtues of sacrifice and
service, they instead learn to challenge, resist, and wield power over
one another's lives.
On the road to certain expulsion, Bill discovers two secrets: one
concerns Brother Thomas, the monk who watches his every move; the
other involves his best friend, Jon. In Bill's hands these secrets
prove dangerous weapons. Handled carelessly, they trigger an event
that threatens to haunt him for the rest of his life.
Brian Payton was born in the United States and moved to Canada at
the age of sixteen. He is the author of two nonfiction books, Long
Beach, Clayoquot and Beyond and Cowboy, and is a
contributor to the acclaimed anthology Literary Trips 2: Following
in the Footsteps of Fame. His work has appeared in the New
York Times, the Chicago Tribune, the Boston Globe,
and Toronto's Globe and Mail.
In 2001 he was awarded the Lowell Thomas Silver Award for best North
American travel essay. He lives in Vancouver British Columbia.
