The Edge of Sadness

Summary

A middle-aged Irish-American priest, recovering from alcoholism after a stint at a treatment retreat, returns to a fading parish in a Northeastern city and is drawn back into the entanglements of an old family of friends. O'Connor narrates in a quiet, reflective first person that lingers on memory, vocation, and the ordinary weather of belief. The novel is admired for its unshowy realism about clerical life and middle-class Catholic experience.