In his follow-up to the bestselling novel The Cardinal Sins, Father Andrew Greeley spins out a story about pride and passion meant to edify us with "an image of God who draws straight with crooked lines, who easily and quickly forgives, and who wants us to love with the tenderness of a mother" (from the epilogue of this novel).
Covering a time frame from 1951 to 1977, Thy Brother's Wife begins when Sean Cronin is in seminary and his older brother Paul is returning from Korea as a war hero. The two boys were raised without a mother by their father Michael, a self-made millionaire and nonstop womanizer. Nora, a nine-year-old orphan, joined their family and was designated to be Paul's eventual wife. Michael determines that his oldest son will become President of the United States and Sean, a Cardinal.
The flaw in the elder Cronin's scenario becomes apparent when the faithless Paul betrays Nora repeatedly while serving in Bobby Kennedy's Justice Department. She returns to Sean during a vacation in Italy where he is doing graduate studies on the Church's teaching and practice in regard to the Sacrament of Matrimony. They become lovers. Nine months later she gives birth to a son.
Sean and Nora return to their commitments with new energy and intensity. As Chancellor of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, he develops into an outspoken critic of the Church's stand on sex and birth control. She takes over the running of the Cronin Foundation. Paul, meanwhile, wins a seat in Congress from Illinois.
Greeley's novel is filled with surprises, including a skeleton in the Cronin family closet, several untimely deaths, and some reverse spins on the career hopes of both Paul and Sean.
The author believes that God can draw good from evil, that sinners can turn into prophets, and that many kinds of love can be interpreted as signs from the Holy One. Although Thy Brother's Wife often spins its wheels in soap opera ruts, it is a trip worth taking.
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