Faith by Jennifer Haigh
from GoodReads:
When Sheila McGann sets out to redeem her disgraced brother, a once-beloved Catholic priest in suburban Boston, her quest will force her to confront cataclysmic truths about her fractured Irish-American family, her beliefs, and, ultimately, herself.
from me:
Editing. Needed editing. The removal of excess backstory for the major characters and the trimming of a myriad of unimportant descriptions. At the time of reading (listening) I occasionally thought, "enough already," and later learned that I'd been wrong--the extra detail was necessary in understanding the character. But other times I was right--too much.
Case in point--the youthful Shelia on the boat. It explained a good bit about what it was like for her growing up in the family and it showed us a picture of the mother and father we needed to see. But did we really need to hear about the cigarette and beer and the first encounter in the head? Fun stuff but pure filler, IMHO.
Some people will say I'm full of bull and it had exactly the amount of detail it needed. I have to admit that as the story drew near the end and I kept wanting it to last longer, I wouldn't have minded a little more detail. And you know what? That's great storytelling. Revealing the details in a tantalizing, somewhat episodic way, not in the order they occurred but in the order you needed to hear them.
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