Patience of a Saint Author:Andrew M. Greeley This is a story of Red Kane, a man caught in a dilemma of love. After twenty years of marriage plagued by misunderstanding and bitter resignation, Red finds himself falling in love with his wife all over again -- and at the same time, pursued by an implacable attractive God. — Redmond P. Kane, a popular Chicago newspaper columnist and Pulit... more »zer prize winner, smokes and drinks too much, neglects his kids, enjoys a mistress, is feared and hated by his colleagues, and has shared nothing but a bed with his wife a for much too long. At fifty-three, Red is an unhappy, disgruntled cynic. But soon, all that changes. On a Chicago street corner a speeding car almost runs him down, and a moment of divine grace -- one in which God and Red's green-eyed wife are somehow identified with each other -- almost knocks him unconscious. And then Red's real trouble begins ...
They start with evil -- plain, old-fashioned wickedness in the person of aging politico Harv Gunther. Red has come up with evidence that links Gunther to the disappearance of a newsman twenty years earlier and the recent murder of a teenage girl, but proving it can cost Kane his career. He's almost ready to close his files, go out for a drink, and forget it all. Yet since his brush death, Red finds himself inexorably drawn down the path of saintliness and driven to always "do the right thing."
Being a good husband to his wife Eileen is at the top of Red's list. Without realizing it, he's whistling "You're Irish and You're Beautiful" -- and dreaming of going home, taking her in his arms, and making up for all the sins of omission accumulated over twenty years of their on-again, off-again marriage. But what happens when he does? Beautiful Irish Eileen thinks he's having a breakdown, just as his newsroom co-workers are sure he's finally gone over the edge. Soon a psychiatrist is trying to have him committed. God has turned Red's whole existence upside down. Must he choose between his wife and God? Or have they joined in a plot to try the patience of a saint?
As Red probes the depths of his new demotions and renewed commitments with the help of Msgr. Blackie Ryan, he also digs into a the dirty business of Harv Gunther and in the process gravely endangers the lives of everyone he loves.« less