Forbidden Love: Written by Lisa Jones Gentry as Told by Their Son Joe Steele

by Lisa Jones Gentry, Joe Steele (As Told by)

Overview

Forbidden Love is the true story of Father William C. Grau, a Black Catholic Priest and Sister Sophie Legocki, a White Polish American nun, who in the segregated fifties, defied the church and society with their passionate secret love affair that lasted for nearly a decade and gave birth to a son, Joe Steele. Joe, a Harvard College and Harvard Business School graduate and successful Global Development Consultant and Executive Coach, now understood why the Archdiocese had sealed his adoption records. When he reunites with his birth mother, Sophie, he finally hears of the passionate love that she and his birth father shared, often risking their lives to be together. Joe also learned for the first time how after his adoption, Sophie and Father Grau continued their love affair when she moved into the Rectory to live with him as his housekeeper until his death in 1964. Joe and Sophie grow closer as he too shares his life as the beloved youngest son in his nurturing and loving adopted Steele family in Cincinnati. Forbidden Love is the inspiring true story of a love that would not be denied proving that true Love will always triumph. Forbidden Love was written by Lisa Jones Gentry, an NAACP Image Award and Literary Critics Nominated writer. She is also a screenwriter and television Executive Producer and attorney and an honors graduate of Harvard College and The Harvard Law School.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780692192368
Publisher:	Tunstull Studio Publishing
Publication date:	08/11/2018
Pages:	238
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Lisa Jones Gentry is an NAACP Image Award and Literary Critics nominated writer and screenwriter. She worked as a television Executive Producer in Hollywood and has produced over a hundred hours of television programming. She is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School.

Joe Steele is a Harvard College and Harvard Business School graduate, is a successful global development consultant, executive coach and world traveler. His 15 year journey learning about his birth parents allowed him to share their story and his. Joe resides in the Hudson Valley outside New York City.

Editorial Reviews

The books I usually read are self-help or business oriented so this was a departure for me. IT. DID. NOT. DISAPPOINT. The storyline of this fascinated me - a secret love affair between a priest and a nun - interracial at that - and they had a baby! I couldn't believe this was true at first, but with recent revelations about the secrecy in the Catholic Church, I realized anything is possible.



The overall message I got was "love is love” and it made me feel ashamed of some of the negative beliefs I held about interracial dating. The fact that these two people fell in love despite all the odds against them, really shows the power of love.



Hard to believe this story is true, cause it is SO OUT THERE, but it is. The author went to school with the "love child." The writer's ability to capture the dialogue between the characters and their internal thoughts is nothing short of amazing. The details were so vivid, she really made them come to life. Even details about how annoying the hospital staff was coming in and out of her room as the mother was telling her story to her son.



I liked the way she weaved in multiple supporting storylines - racial issues, the Catholic Church, adoption, colorism in the black community, WWII history. This book should really become a movie - SOON. By L. Henderson 12/20/18

Maybe you too are weary of hearing the phrase, "In our current climate." To me, it's yet another reminder that right now hate and incivility swirl around us every day. This book is a quick little escape hatch into what feels like an old Harlequin romance. Like a dog-eared, racy paperback that ladies pass around to each other at the hairdresser. Except the main characters in this one are an inter-racial, nun-and-priest combo that never ever should have hooked up according to any logical or societal or clerical standards. A black American priest and white Polish-American nun in the late 50's early 60's? Are you kidding me? Crazy-sounding but true. The product of their rather steamy, covert union is the living, breathing, recipient of this motherlode of a story as told to him by his birth mother, the former nun. Nearly impossible to get your head around, but oddly familiar at the same time. The familiarity being references to trappings of black culture that cut both ways for those of us who are, or look, bi-racial. Too light to avoid annoying black people and too black to be comfortable with whites who would prefer we not call out our blackness. Afros that won't curl. Jack and Jill socials for the light-skinned kids. The book flip flops between the lives of the son who was put up for adoption as an infant, the nun's life and the father's life so buckle your seat belt to follow the sometimes abrupt scene and time period changes. But it's a seesaw that's well worth embarking. It reminded me of the brilliant psychologist Evelyn Hooker's quote, "love is love no matter where you find it." Find this book and read it now.

​Lisa Stewart - September 13, 2018

From the Publisher