Sins of the Fathers

By Chris Lynch

Book Overview

It's your team or your family or your neighborhood or your church, or maybe just yourself and two other guys. But you have to be able to count on each other, or you can't count on anything at all. My... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 006074037X
• ISBN13: 9780060740375
• Release Date: September 2006
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.1" x 0.9" x 5.0"
• Age Range: 14 years and up
• Grade Range: Grade 9 and higher

Customer Reviews

Courtesy of Teens Read Too

Drew, Skitz, and Hector are a tribe. They've known each other since they were little kids, and you can almost always find them together. As a tribe, they watch each other's backs. When one takes a fall, they usually all do, because that's just the way a tribe works. They get in trouble together, quite a bit, at the Catholic school they attend. They can make up their own trouble, too, especially when Skitz and sometimes Hector accompany Drew on his newspaper route. There's another tribe involved in SINS OF THE FATHER, though, and they're made up of Fathers Blarney, Mullarkey, and Shenanigan. Sometimes they're iron-fisted, sometimes they're full of baloney, sometimes they're just regular priests doing the best they can to keep three boys under control. But Drew is worried when his tribe starts getting out of hand. The normally calm and cool Hector is acting strange, and when Drew suggests a possible reason for the personality change (involving one of the Fathers of the Church), Hector goes a little crazy. Skitz, too, who can never shut up, especially at the most inappropriate times, is talking even more than usual. What follows are events that will put the boys' friendship to the test. Although SINS OF THE FATHERS can be interpreted both literally and figuratively, this is a story that, ultimately, focuses on the three boys and their loyalty to one another. Being a tribe means watching each other's backs, yes, but it also means a whole lot more. For Drew, Skitz, and Hector, life may never be exactly the same, but there's truth in the fact that friendship can get you through anything. Reviewed by: Jennifer Wardrip, aka "The Genius"

Amazing book from Chris Lynch

After my disappointment at several of Chris Lynch's other books, I don't know what possesed me to pick up Sins of the Fathers. However, I am so glad that I did. This book is simply brilliant. There's really not much more to say.

A novel that fearlessly explores loyalty in the face of adversity

Since they were snot-nosed six-year-olds, Skitz, Drew and Hector have been inseparable. Skitz is the unpredictable one, with no filter between his brain and his mouth; Hector is the strong, silent one; and Drew is the one who keeps their group together. Now they're faced with another trinity --- their Catholic school faculty, which consists of Monsignor Blarney, Father Shenanigan, and the outspoken renegade, Father Mullarkey --- that threatens to break them apart and send them in three different, dangerous directions. Drew worries about Hector the most. Normally nonviolent, Hector flies into a rage when Skitz suggests that Father Shenanigan might be sexually abusing him. Hector spends more time than ever away from Skitz and Drew, becomes withdrawn and secretive about his home life, and seems to become more ill every day, dosing himself with Saint Joseph baby aspirin and RC Cola. Drew knows that no matter what the Fathers say or do to him, he must keep his promise to Hector: to wait for Hector if he "falls behind." Skitz, never the most stable of people, becomes even more impulsive and erratic when he learns that he is one incident away from being kicked out of school, following the breaking of a window. Drew feels there is almost nothing he can do to make Skitz act "normal" until he discovers the real reason behind Skitz's inability to sit down and shut up at crucial moments. Now, he not only has to save Skitz from Hector, but he must save Skitz from himself. In a time of controversy over teacher-student relationships, especially where the Catholic Church is concerned, SINS OF THE FATHERS fearlessly explores what it means to be loyal in the face of a seemingly impenetrable adversary. It's true that Chris Lynch's disjointed writing can be a difficult read, but stick with the book. Drew is admirable even in his most obnoxious moments, and the ending is hopeful if horrifying. --- Reviewed by Carlie Webber

Richie's Picks: SINS OF THE FATHERS

"At six-fifteen on a borderline blizzard morning, outside my bedroom window, Skitz Fitzsimmons reared his ugly head. I was preoccupied and groggy at the same time, so I didn't even notice him there until he was staring back at me like a lunatic mirror reflection. He had one eye squinted and the other eye wide and his mouth was pinched up in a pucker and shifted way over to the side. Like he always looked." So begins the story told by Drew St. Cyr, one-third of a close-knit tribe of young men who attend Blessed Sacrament, a Catholic school in Boston that is attached to the big old church of the same name. Drew's two "partners in crime" are star altar boy Hector Fossas and the wild and crazy Skitz Fitzsimmons. "Skitz was just along for the ride mostly, but Hector came from one of those very serious families who believed the Church was everything and everything they said was true no matter how sci-fi it sounded. He didn't believe it was everything, exactly, but he believed it was right up there. He somehow managed to be all right anyway. " 'I don't believe you will tell me shuddup again,' Hector said calmly. " 'I do believe I am telling you shuddup right now,' Skitz said. "They really are good friends. It's just that a lot of the time it's a good thing that they have me in between them. I have fine interpersonal skills." In the alternately dark and funny SINS OF THE FATHERS, Drew narrates the story of the trio's close friendship amidst the life-altering events that entangle all three at the same time that a new priest is assigned to the Blessed Sacrament parish. "This was our new priest? This was like nobody's priest. "In addition to his eye-catching entrance, he was a whole eyeful himself. He was a revelation. He was a whole book of revelations. We had never seen a father like Father Mullarkey, and I'd bet nobody else had either. First, he dressed like a free-walking citizen rather than a priest. A big fan of denim, of ripped denim and patches and T-shirts that looked like he was spray painted with a hose. "What else he was very much like, was a Hells Angels motorcycle club guy, which meant he looked like a big meat-eating hippy with long hair, an acre of ginger beard, and strappy, bumpy muscles. He looked like a hippy that ate hippies. He sounded like a talking bear." As he gets to know the bear-like priest (and Father Mullarkey's love for greasy food, alcoholic beverages, and late-Sixties rock), Drew is fascinated at how the new priest so frequently strays "from the assigned text," the official Church teachings. Meanwhile, the official Church--personified by Monsignor Blarney and Father Shenanigan--is in the process of trying to sort the three young men into categories. This sorting process will hack at their bonds of their friendship. But it is the new priest who seeks to galvanize Drew, urging him to hold on tight. " 'You've got a good little tribe there, Andrew. And all of life winds up being driven by tribes. Your family, your sch