The Translation of Father Torturo by Brendan Connell

The Translation of Father Torturo by Brendan Connell
ISBN: 0-8095-0043-4
www.prime-books.com
Review by George Sotirhos

«In 1263, when the vault containing the body of St. Anthony was opened, thirty-two years after its original internment, the flesh had turned to dust, but the tongue was in a perfect state of preservation. For almost eight-hundred years it was kept mounted on a pin. But now it has been stolen.
Padua, Milan, Venice, Florence, Rome…Father Torturo, the neo-decadent anti-hero, moves through a modern Italy seeking of incense and faith. In an adventure stained with magic and garnished with cruelty, he travels on an ambitious journey to popedom, where the only laws that restain him are those of his own artistic taste.»

Our good friend Brendan is surely known to the readers of our magazine. We have published short stories by him, in both the Greek and the English issues of the magazine and we have also presented his first book. This is his second book and it most definitely is of the same high level as the first one.
Before we go to the actual material of it, we have to make a special reference to the flawless aesthetic of the great cover. Brendan clearly believes that a good book starts from the design of its cover and he is not mistaken. Even if you do not feel like reading it or you are not interested in this particular literary genre, you will definitely want to have it adorning you library, as a small work of art.
The story of the book is meticulously structured and the result is a suspenseful plot. At a first glance someone might think, “One more book about the ‘backstage’ of the Catholic Church, so what?” But believe me, this book is really different and so is Brendan’s writing technique. I have read a lot of books, big and small. I have read well made stories with a rich plot that were up to 600 pages, but which had a single fault. After reading only 20 pages, I could have written the ending myself, one that would not differ a lot from the author’s actual ending. Despite the peripeteia included, “the natural outcome of things”, was spelled out from the very first words.
But the story line in Brendan’s book is really unexpected and presented in such a way that does not allow you to guess what is going to happen, not even in the next ten pages. If you start reading it, you are not going to put it down before you get to the final page, because that is the only place where all your questions are going to be answered.
Let us say some things about the plot of the novel. Xaverio Torturo becomes an orphan in a very young age, when his parents die during a ferocious Italian vendetta, and he is brought up by his uncle Guido. It soon becomes obvious that he is clever and different from the rest of the children, so the local priest undertakes part of his education. He is taught Latin and everything else that the priest consideres necessary. Torturo finally becomes a priest himself and gradually starts implementing his plan for the resurgence of the Catholic Church and the enlivenment of people’s faith, following a path that is not paved with roses but with witchcraft and blood.
He steals holy relics which had remained intact through time, and with the help of an illegal doctor, he has a series of operations performed and replaces his own organs with the holy relics. The most valuable of all is St. Anthony’s tongue, incorrupt since 1263. So, having the divine grace “embedded” in his body, he is ready to claim his final goal, the papal throne.

I do not want to say more about the plot, because the rest of it deserves to be discovered by you. It is a unique book, with a vivid mode of writing and I believe that it is going to satisfy even the most demanding readers, those whose always seek for something different.