Some Rise by Sin: A Novel

by Philip Caputo Narrated by P.J. Ochlan

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Philip Caputo tells the story of a Franciscan priest struggling to walk a moral path through the shifting and fatal realities of an isolated Mexican village

The Mexican village of San Patricio is being menaced by a bizarre, cultish drug cartel infamous for its brutality. As the townspeople try to defend themselves by forming a vigilante group, the Mexican army and police have their own ways of fighting back. Into this volatile mix of forces for good and evil (and sometimes both) steps an unlikely broker for peace: Timothy Riordan, an American missionary priest who must decide whether to betray his vows to stop the unspeakable violence and help the people he has pledged to protect.

Riordan's fellow expatriate Lisette Moreno serves the region in a different way, as a doctor who makes “house calls” to impoverished settlements, advocating modern medicine to a traditional society wary of outsiders. To gain acceptance, she must keep secret her rocky love affair with artist Pamela Childress, whose troubled emotions lead Moreno to question their relationship.

Together, Lisette and Riordan tend to their community. But when Riordan oversteps the bounds of his position, his personal crisis echoes the impossible choices facing a nation beset by instability and bloodshed.

Based on actual events, propelled by moral conflict, and animated by a keen and discerning sensibility, Some Rise by Sin demonstrates yet again Philip Caputo's generous and insightful gifts as a storyteller.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

03/20/2017
Expanding on several of the themes of his 2009 novel Crossers, Caputo’s latest is a thought-provoking story of unthinkable brutality. Former art history professor Timothy Riordan is the Catholic pastor of San Patricio, a remote village in the Mexican state of Sonora. The foothills of the Sierra Madre range in which San Patricio is located are torn by violent conflicts between drug cartels, local militias, the federal army, and police. Widely respected by the townspeople, Riordan also has the ear of military and intelligence authorities. But rather than helping him fulfill his call to serve and save his flock, Riordan’s network of connections produces deepening moral dilemmas. How, if at all, should information gained from positions of trust—including the confessional—be used in the hope of ameliorating suffering? What is the meaning of God in an apparently demonic world? As an emerging cartel called the Brotherhood wraps trafficking, murder, and mutilation in religious imagery, Riordan faces decisions that test him. A secondary narrative about expat doctor Lisette Moreno never fully gels, and the intricacies of Mexico’s shifting power balance can be difficult to follow. Yet poised as he is between unforgiving vows, lofty ideals, and searing chaos, Caputo’s Riordan is an everyman whose struggles illuminate the contradictions of human nature and the mysteries of faith. (May)

From the Publisher

Caputo knows how to set a scene and build tension through detail . . . . His prose is tough-minded but not without compassion, and he brings experience from one part of the world to another.”
—Seattle Times

“A work of genuine heft, Some Rise by Sin explores the search for meaning in a place where the stakes are highest and does so with unwavering focus. Caputo remains a master of his craft.”
—Booklist (starred review)

“Caputo’s novel is one of action . . . . The overall lesson of the novel is a powerful one: economics trumps morality in shaping the fate of nations.”
—BookPage

“Couldn’t be timelier. . . . Caputo is an acute observer of human disorder and disarray . . . . A compelling novel.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Caputo skillfully brings to life the complex existential drama of [staying true to faith while living in a corrupt world]. Powerful and timely.”
—Library Journal

“A thought-provoking story . . . . Illuminate[s] the contradictions of human nature and the mysteries of faith.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A mighty narrative in a brutal land of old gods and new devils where darkness pierces the heart in an unholy war for souls. Beyond the realities of vicious narco-hombres, crooked good guys, innocents torn asunder and acts of selfless grace, Caputo reaches for a high moral compass not seen since Graham Greene’s magnificent Mexico set classic, The Power And The Glory.”
—Thomas Sanchez, author of Mile Zero and Rabbit Boss

Library Journal

02/01/2017
Caputo, whose long and distinguished career as a journalist and author includes nine novels, three memoirs, and a number of general nonfiction titles, is probably still best known for his 1977 Vietnam memoir, A Rumor of War, which asked troubling questions about the conflict that continue to resonate with readers today. This title portrays an American missionary priest, Father Riordan, who is serving a poor parish in San Patricio, Mexico. As in A Rumor of War, this novel features a morally compromised political environment, where competing drug lords, vigilante groups, and corrupt federal troops create a horrific no-man's-land ruled by violence, intimidation, and daily atrocities. Human life has very little worth in this part of Mexico, and this book centers on Riordan's attempts to stay true to his faith and his vows while living in a world poisoned to its core by corruption and greed. Caputo skillfully brings to life the complex existential drama of this predicament. VERDICT Powerful and timely, this novel is especially recommended for fans of politically focused literary fiction. [See Prepub Alert, 11/17/16.]—Patrick Sullivan, Manchester Community Coll., CT

Kirkus Reviews

2017-02-21
A novel that couldn't be more timely: the story of culture clash and compromise in Mexico.Caputo's eighth novel revolves around two Americans, a priest and a physician, in the Mexican village of San Patricio. This is not, the author tells us, "Cancún [or] Puerta Vallarta"; rather, it is the Mexico of our darkest, wall-building fantasies, "one vast bad neighborhood, East L.A. or the South Side of Chicago on steroids." Lest such an image seem stereotypical, it's not—because Caputo is an acute observer of human disorder and disarray. The priest here, Father Timothy Riordan, is conflicted: about his celibacy, about his faith, and most of all about his tenuous position between the townspeople and the authorities. The doctor, Lisette Moreno, is more settled, but that is to some extent due to her privilege; she has come to Mexico by choice. Complicating everything is the presence of the Brotherhood, a gang of narcos so casually brutal that their threats and violence are never anything but believable. The moral landscape is reminiscent of Robert Stone, particularly his 1981 novel A Flag for Sunrise, which also revolves in part around a priest adrift in chaos south of the border. Stone's perspective, though, is more apocalyptic, or perhaps, most accurately, touched with madness; among the challenges (and rewards) of his writing is the sense not just that the center isn't holding, but also that there is no center to hold. Caputo is a more traditional novelist, and his aims are, finally, less ambitious; for all its detailed evocation of life in the village, his book is more or less a character portrait, or a pair of character portraits, in which the Americans are always in the light. That makes for a more focused effort, especially in regard to Riordan, whose self-flagellations (both real and imagined) largely drive the narrative. "His anger drained away," Caputo writes of the priest, "and a gloom dropped over him, like a hood over a man about to be hanged." Ultimately, however—and despite the force of the writing—this makes the novel too neat, too predictable. Caputo is taking on a messy territory, in which there are no answers, and everyone must do what they need to get along. This is the promise of his novel, that such disruption is contagious, but in the end, the book portrays less the corruption of a tarnished world than the blight of a single errant soul. This is a compelling novel that wraps up too neatly, belying the uncertainty and turmoil at its core.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169080773
Publisher:	Macmillan Audio
Publication date:	05/09/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

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