The Sacrament of Reconciliation

It's an Operation on the Heart

Patricia Hampl June 21, 2004 - 3:32am

Bill Jack, my old friend from grade school, has reminded me. It all remains indelible and permanently mysterious to him, too: those Saint Paul Saturday nights in lilac time, the years before daylight-savings, when it was already dark by seven o’clock. Monsignor Cullinan, little barrel of a body, shuffling up the slight incline of Lexington in an oddly staccato way. And Father Slattery. Handsome and remote. He always accompanied monsignor, and slowed his long-legged...

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About the Author

Patricia Hampl is the author of The Florist's Daughter and several other books. She teaches creative writing at the University of Minnesota.

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