Temptations of St. Ed and Brother S

by Frank Bergon

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0874172268
• ISBN13: 9780874172263
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: University of Nevada Press
• Length: 305 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

A unique tale and a good read.

For those of us who love the desert Southwest, it captures the sense of place. The odd mix of characters inherent in Nevada, each multi-dimensional. Compelling story and central characters - I was glued to it. Interesting thoughts on a monk's spiritual pursuits and, of course, temptations. I hoped at times for it to soar even higher into the abstract, but then remembered how grounded in material reality is this setting, and how palpable is the balance between inner peace (the open land) and corruption (the people) there. Felt the ending a little awkward, but still I praise. Read it!

Publisher's Weekly Review 8/30/98

Blunt, no-nonsense prose conveys a dark vision of the modern struggle to maintain religious commitment in this novel set outside Las Vegas. After finalizing plans to use nearby Shoshone land as a nuclear waste disposal site, the Department of Energy has begun efforts to drive out local residents, including the two eponymous monks who live at a Cistercian hermitage in the area. St. Ed, troubled by the monastery's failure to attract postulants and by his bishop's orders to give into the DOE without a fight, wants to make his order more responsive to contemporary society. Brother S, attracted to Bureau of Land Management employee Amy Chavez, finds his vows tested when St. Ed abandons the Cistercian rules and allows Amy to enter the hermitage as a postulant. As the deadline to vacate approaches, the ensuing chaos leads to a tragic act of violence, simultaneously pointless and inspirational, that infuses a note of hope into the novel's bleak tone. Bergon (Shoshone Mike) mixes non-preachy spiritual meditations with an all-too-believable plot; while he's fair to all characters, he leaves no doubt whose side he is on. A solid read that treats faith seriously and doesn't offer easy answers about its place in today's world.

The New Yorker Review 2/21/94

St. Ed is the crusty, foulmouthed founder of a Trappist hermitage in the Nevada desert; Brother S (for Simon) is the one monk in fifteen years who has stuck it out. He has found the monastic peace he sought, keeping bees, irrigating the vegetable garden, and studying church texts. Brother S is disturbed when Ed more or less advertises the hermitage by appearing on a Vegas talk show; he is disturbed in a different way when he rescues a stranded female ranger from the Bureau of Land Management. But everyone - the ranger, Ed, Brother S, local desert rats, and the nearby Shoshone Indians - is more than disturbed when the United States Department of Energy swoops down upon the desert, intending to run its inhabitants off and install a nuclear-waste repository. The author beautifully captures the self-congratulatory hypocrisy of government officials who call themselves "environmentalists" while plotting the destruction of the environment, and worse. And he dwells upon the attractions of the contemplative life so seductively that, for once, you hope the guy will not get the girl.