'Agatha Of Little Neon' falls out of love with the church

NPR's Book of the Day

NPR

Books, Arts

4.2 • 672 Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2021

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In the novel Agatha Of Little Neon, a young woman, Agatha, is in need of direction after she loses her mother and finds it in the church. When Agatha and her fellow nuns are reassigned to a half-way house, they start to look inward and reevaluate their own lives. Author Claire Luchette told NPR's Scott Simon that this is a book about finding yourself, but also finding out about the darker side of the church: "My goal in writing this book was not to write a loss-of-faith story but almost a falling-out-of-love story."

See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, we hope you've been enjoying the show. It's been a pleasure bringing you these conversations about books we love,
0:06.2	digging into the science of sound, the history of water, hotel heists and secret space stations.
0:12.1	Sometimes we get asked what the best way is to support new shows like this one.
0:16.2	It's really easy and would mean so much to us.
0:19.4	Just take a minute and go to npr.org
0:21.8	slash donate to give to your local NPR station and thanks.
0:29.0	Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbaugh.
0:32.6	You ever run into a writer who can take an everyday thing, something normal or, you know,
0:36.9	boring even,
0:37.8	and describe it in a way that makes you stop for a second and just sit there with it.
0:43.4	Claire Luchetti does that a couple of times in today's interview.
0:46.3	Their debut novel, Agatha of Little Neon, is about Catholicism and faith.
0:51.1	And there's a part in this interview when NPR Scott, Simon, asks about the more
0:55.4	harmful aspects of the church. When the interview was recorded, former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick
1:00.0	had just been charged with sexually assaulting a teenager in the 70s. And Luchetti says something
1:04.6	that stopped me. I don't know, maybe I'm just in a mood or something. But they said this book
1:08.8	isn't about falling out of faith. It's about falling out of love.
1:13.5	Here's the interview. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.
1:19.0	Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.
1:25.6	NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people,
1:29.3	helping you understand why distant events matter here at home.
1:32.9	Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.