The Beginning of Calamities

Rating:
Summary: Moving and powerful, a true work of art!!!
Review: A fantastic read! I couldn't put it down. House has really broken ground with this dark comedy. Little Danny Burke has captured my heart as did his band of misfit school mates. I haven't seen a more colorful cast of children since the Peanuts gang. Liz Kaigh and Carol Burke are laugh out loud perfect. I will be looking for Tom House's next work. What a great movie this would Be. Bravo to House!

Rating:
Summary: a wonderful read
Review: Alternately poignant and hilarious--and sometimes both at once--this saga of gifted but lonely little Danny Burke, who writes an Easter passion play that gets put on at his Catholic grammer school, is enormously readable. It is also beautifully written.
The book resonates with all my memories of my own Catholic grammar school. We had our debacles too, but they were not as funny or as moving as the fixes Danny--in his passion for his passion play--gets himself into.

Rating:
Summary: Passion Play
Review: The Beginning of Calamities is terrific. Yes, it's very funny and, yes again, it's knowing and compassionate without ever being sentimental. Those of you who survived your own Catholic education will be reminded again of the horrors and the pleasures. Tom House is an exceptionally good storyteller and prose writer. What distinguishes "Calamities" is its awareness, in nearly every scene, that sexual desire and the desire for love and the desire to know god are all part of one big passion.