An Inverted Sort of Prayer

By Chris F. Needham

Cut loose at the end of a long and violent hockey career prolonged by steroids and numbed by liquor, ex-enforcer Billy Purdy discovers that the soon-to-be-published novel of a celebrated politician's son is in fact Billy's father's own, taken word for word from the original published, and promptly forgotten, some forty years before. Allowing the ruse to continue, and in an effort to distance himself from his violent past, Purdy embarks upon an exotic, oftentimes absurd adventure in an attempt to reinvent himself in what he envisions to be a more cerebral and civilized image, in a world he has never fully been a part of, or developed the necessary tools to properly inhabit. Yearning for connection of any kind, yet seemingly unable to sustain it for any length of time, Billy Purdy comes to symbolize the alienation, frustration, and ultimate futility behind this quintessential Canadian dream.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0973955805
• ISBN13: 9780973955804
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Now or Never Publishing Company
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.1" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Worth reading to the twisted end.

An Inverted Sort of Prayer is narrated by main character, Billy Purdy, an Indian and ex-professional Canadian team hockey player, whose stardom sends him on an abusive rocky road of steroids, drugs, alcohol, sex, and sordid rendezvous' to find himself. Needham has Purdy perusing nearly every bar in Canada along with his so-called friend DeBoer and a number of other shady characters who help contribute to Purdy's abuse. Needham's characters and description are so real; the readers will find themselves sitting on bar stools, sniffing the stagnant smoke-filled, booze-infiltrated air. In his debut novel, Needham does a bang up job bringing his characters to life. The dialogue flows so naturally, it makes you feel part of the conversation. The long paragraphs of description, which led from one page to the next, along with the need to know why Purdy would let DeBoer get away with plagiarizing his father's book, kept me reading to the end. An Inverted Sort of Prayer, takes you on a tour of civilized and uncivilized behavior, and Needham's writing will have you feeling the frustration and failures of his characters. It's worth reading to the twisted end, even if you're not a fan of hockey, alcohol, drugs and sex.