5 reviews for Dodging Satan: My Irish/Italian sometimes awesome, but mostly cre…

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  RM10/09/2024

  Kathleen McCormick has done a fantastic job with this book. I loved the way the book started from a young child’s perspective and the writing developed to show the ageing of Bridget. The humour almost seemed accidental in the child like style of writing which just made it more enjoyable. The unravelling of Bridget’s beliefs as she grew up and discovered that nothing is black and white made the book so interesting to read and highlights the problematic nature of religion on young minds whilst being very entertaining.

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  Denise Lucas10/09/2024

  Dodging Satan: My Irish/Italian, Sometimes Awesome, But Mostly Creepy, Childhood written by Kathleen McCormick was a very well written story about a female character named Bridget who is dealing with growing up with her family, one side Irish, and the other side Italian. Bridget is a Catholic school girl, and this book is the telling of her young life and the issues of growing up, maturing, puberty, religion, and other problems she faces with being surrounded by very religious family. I found this book had a good humor to it, but it also had some seriousness in the subject matter that lead me to really feel for Bridget and her experiences. I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend this to anyone who is not super religious, as the humor in this book in regards to religion may upset those who are firm believers and believe that religion is a very serious subject matter. Overall the author did a wonderful job telling this story, it kept my interest all the way through the book and I loved how the author used humor to lighten the mood.

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  Grady Harp10/09/2024

  New York author Kathleen Zamboni McCormick grew up in Cambridge, MA, in a tense Irish/Italian Catholic family whose contradictions were both hilarious (in retrospect) and frightening and form the nidus for her debut novel, ‘Dodging Satan: My Irish/Italian Sometimes Awesome But Mostly Creepy Childhood.‘ She has authored and coauthored books on reading and teaching world literature. Her educational background is both Boston College and the University of Connecticut and she now is a professor of Literature at SUNY Purchase, and has won national awards for her academic work–about innovative ways to teach writing and (no surprise!) Irish and Italian literature. In addition to her writing and teaching, she finds pleasure in arts & crafts, sewing, knitting, crewel work, and embroidery, claiming that “if I weren’t a writer and an academic, I’d have become a weaver. The pleasure I take in fabrics is something that certainly comes through in Dodging Satan. The weaver in me I hope is also evident in the ways in which I write digressively and then work every detail back into the main fabric of the story.”Kathleen has that style of writing that is both hilarious and poignant simultaneously. How? By creating a fictional novel that closely parallels her childhood experiences and while being a coming of age story it goes beyond just that as a dissection of Catholicism and its influences on children and adults who act like children! Read simple the titles to the chapters of her book offers a fine glance at the jewels within, but getting a taste of the manner in which she places words on the page is a better introduction to her gifts. She opens ‘Why is God in daddy’s slippers?’ with ‘The Italian and Irish sides of our family can argue about almost anything— the thickness of porridge, how much people can drink before they’re officially alcoholics, and which side acts more like “bloody foreigners.” But they all agree on the sacredness of the crucifix. An uncle on each side survived an attack in WWII that killed the rest of their platoons— all because they were wearing their crucifixes. I volunteer to tell the story of the miracle of my uncles’ salvation to my second grade class. The bombs were bursting in air. My uncles, years before my birth, were staring at the rockets’ red glare. The rockets were about to come down on them when they touched their crosses around their necks, and God touched them back. A heavenly host of angels singing alleluia held up American flags against our enemies who didn’t believe in God. And all of this to save my two uncles, Johnny Flaherty and Tony Alonzo. God is Italian. Or Irish. Either way, He was on our side. That’s why we won.’ And it just gets better!The synopsis provides a map of the tale: ‘Bridget Flagherty, a student at St. Michael’s Catholic school outside Boston in the 60s and 70s, takes refuge in her wacky misunderstandings of Bible Stories and Catholic beliefs to avoid the problems of her Irish/Italian family life. Her musings on sadistic nuns, domestic violence, emerging sexuality, and God the Father’s romantic life will delight readers. Bridget creates glorious supernatural worlds—with exorcisms, bird relics, Virgin Martyrs, time travel, Biblical plagues, even the ‘holy’ in holy water—to cope with a family where leather handbags and even garlic can cause explosions. An avid Bible reader who innocently believes everything the nuns tell her, Bridget’s saints, martyrs, and boney Christs become alive and audible within her. While the nuns chide her sinful ‘mathematical pride’ and slow eating habits, God answers her prayers instantly by day, but the devil visits nightly in the dark. Scenes run the gamut from laugh-out-loud Catholic brainwashing of children, to heart-wrenching abuse, to riveting teenage excursions toward sex. Young Bridget tries to make sense of a world of raging men and domestically subjugated women and carve a future for herself, wrestling with how God and men treat women. Her Italian female relatives—glamorous Santa Anna, black-and-blue Aunt Maria, sophisticated Eleanor with a New York ‘Fellini pageboy’—offer sensual alternatives to the repression of her immediate family. She prays fervently that “despite God’s bizarre treatment of married women… some [girls] might still discover ways to have a great time without being a nun.”Kathleen Zamboni McCormick, welcome to the arena of the finest in contemporary comedic writing. Her future is assured. Grady Harp, July 16

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  quirru10/09/2024

  Dodging Satan by Kathleen Zamboni McCormick it is a book full of humor and sharp at the same time, is the story of her childhood, being an Italian-Irish Kid that studied at a nurse school and lived in a rigid family, she remembers imaging the Bible as a book that needs to be interpreted by this young little girl, and so the circumstances make her think hilarious things sometimes awesome things other times but most of all very weird things, that was the way she was able to keep living with her dysfunctional family and catholic school. The book is very well written, the characters, especially the main character, the girl doing the narrative is a very well-constructed personage that makes me laugh or smile more than once and at the same time is sad the loneliness that she must be surrounded by to be thinking all these amazing thoughts. It is a good read, different from other books in many ways but especially in the plot, I enjoyed myself reading it.

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  Cheri Roan10/09/2024

  “Some people we know think that a young girl might be afraid of realistic crucifixes, but I don’t see why. It’s one thing to be frightened by the Devil, you know? But how can an accurate depiction of Christ’s blood bother anyone because we all understand that every wound of his, every bit of his suffering, helps to lessen ours here on earth.”Germs, Catholic school, nuns, rosaries, holy cards, a glow-in-the-dark crucifix, snakes under the bed along with God and the devil make up the journey of Bridget Flagherty’s misunderstood childhood. She is a confused young girl who suffers from nightmares and an Irish/Italian mixed family with so many family secrets carried around on the “q.t.” it’s hard not to suffer from strange nightmares. Bridget believes the nightmares are from satan, however the dr says it’s anxiety, the priest says its guilt, her dad says it’s nothing and her mother tries to help but the nightmares continue. The nuns use fear to make the children behave and adult type books that only add to the child’s fears and confusion.Kathleen is a remarkable writer, taking humor and religion and creatively writing a unique coming-of-age read that is not only hilarious yet thought-provoking all at the same time. At times, I found the novel to be extremely sad with all the family secrets one little girl must carry, leaving a roller coaster of emotions throughout. Already an award winner, I expect there to be more to come with this remarkable novel and Kathleen’s amazing writing style. Hilariously funny, poignant and thought-provoking coming-of-age novel that will stay with the reader long after the story ends.“Satan is so sly, keeping it all on the q.t. He doesn’t appear in any room but mine. And my parents don’t care, whatever I say.”