SAINT NORMAN

Another one from my time in undergraduate education! [AND AGAIN, FAIR WARNING. THIS BOOK ISN’T GOOD, EITHER. BUT IT DOES MEAN SOMETHING TO ME, SO IT IS STILL AVAILABLE.]

Ruth Messier had been sitting in a special care hospital strapped to a chair for twenty-five years. She couldn’t see or hear. She couldn’t smell or taste or feel. She had no arms and no legs. Ruth Messier was a bowling ball.

Unbeknownst to the torso, a gun-toting teenager killed fourteen patrons of the Thrifty Mart, a gas station just across the street from Ruth’s special care hospital. At the same time, a woman ran out on her alcoholic boyfriend and their two cats. Enter Saint Norman, the patron saint of bowling balls. Saint Norman, looking down on the Lanes of Life from his snack bar in the sky.

From the author of Womb of Monsters comes a hilarious satirical novel where saints play poker, trees are used to communicate with the dead, and nurses have ninja ability. In this new work, Thomas Aiello takes on religious dogma, the judicial system, and the media as events quickly spiral to a dramatic conclusion. Saint Norman is tragicomedy at its finest.