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In war-ravaged Sicily at the peak of World War II, a young and naïve priest named Father Gaetano comes to the Church of San Domenico in hopes of providing stability and faith to the parish's large contingent of orphans that the war has produced. Quickly, he finds that his challenges are more pronounced than he expected: the children bear deep emotional wounds and as a result are deeply skeptical of faith of any kind; and more than one of the children have severe psychological concerns to deal with. Despite his chilly welcome to the parish, Father Gaetano quickly befriends a young boy named Sebastiano, who is emotionally attached to a puppet named Pagliaccio that was left by the previous caretaker. Upon learning that there's a box of puppets and an exquisitely designed puppet theater in an abandoned part of the church's grounds, Father Gaetano thinks that he has found the solution to the catechism struggles of the orphans; he will simply illustrate his teachings through the puppets as a way to make a spiritual connection with the disillusioned youth. Unfortunately for Father Gaetano, there appears to be a reason that the parish stopped performing plays at the puppet theater---the puppets seem to have a life of their own. Led by Sebastiano's beloved Pagliaccio, the puppets are taking the plays that Father Gaetano is staging a bit too literally and starting to enact their vengeance on the children and staff of the parish. FATHER GAETANO'S PUPPET CATECHISM is near-perfect mix of surreal gothic imagery, a fascinating story, and true and heart-wrenching characters. Despite being marketed as an "illustrated novella" (don't be fooled into thinking this is a novel-graphic novel hybrid--there's fewer than one small illustration per chapter) and the authors having a graphic novel pedigree, the novella avoids many of the pratfalls non-graphic novel readers would associate with the book based on its description. Hyperbole, extreme violence, and the general CHILD'S PLAY type of hijinks that many might expect in such a novella are absent, but instead readers are presented with three-dimensional characters of considerable depth. Father Gaetano is a caring and complex character who is sincerely trying to help the orphans achieve some emotional peace. The children, and Sebastiano in particular, are truly heart-wrenching and sympathetic characters that I simply did not expect to find in a book where the build-up culminates in puppets taking violent vengeance upon a parish. At its heart, the novella is a cautionary tale that illustrates both the importance of faith and the dangers of overly-devoted dogmatism as evidenced, respectively, by the disillusionment of the children and the literal interpretation of the biblical plays that lead the puppets to take action in the most violent of ways. These themes have particular resonance at a time, especially in the United States, when the debate over the role and legitimacy of religion in the public square has never been more heated. While the novella's symbolism is fairly simple to discern, it never becomes (forgive the pun) preachy; but rather tells a fascinating and heart-warming story that hooks the reader early and never lets go. § Ben Neal is a public librarian in northeastern Tennessee and likes to fancy himself an amateur writer, humorist, detective, and coffee connoisseur in his spare time. He can be reached at beneneal@indiana.edu.
Reviewed by Ben Neal, October 2012
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