Wheat That Springeth Green
  • Published:
    Aug-1988 (Hardcover)
    1990 (Paperback)
  • Formats:
    Print / eBook
  • Main Genre:
    General Fiction
  • Pages:
    335
  • Rating:
  • Purchase:
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Wheat That Springeth Green, J. F. Powers's beautifully realized final work, is a comic foray into the commercialized wilderness of modern American life. Its hero, Joe Hackett, is a high school track star who sets out to be a saint. But seminary life and priestly apprenticeship soon damp his ardor, and by the time he has been given a parish of his own he has traded in his hair shirt for the consolations of baseball and beer. Meanwhile Joe's higher-ups are pressing for an increase in profits from the collection plate, suburban Inglenook's biggest business wants to launch its new line of missiles with a blessing, and not all that far away, in Vietnam, a war is going on. Joe wants to duck and cover, but in the end, almost in spite of himself, he is condemned to do something right.

J. F. Powers was a virtuoso of the American language with a perfect ear for the telling clich? and an unfailing eye for the kitsch that clutters up our lives. This funny and very moving novel about the making and remaking of a priest is one of his finest achievements.
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EDITIONS
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    •  
    • Jan-1990
    • Washington Square Press
    • Paperback
    • ISBN: 0671682210
    • ISBN13: 9780671682217
    •  
    • Jun-2000
    • New York Review of Books
    • Trade Paperback
    • ISBN: 0940322242
    • ISBN13: 9780940322240
    • First Edition
    • Aug-1988
    • Knopf
    • Hardcover
    • ISBN: 0394496094
    • ISBN13: 9780394496092
    •  
    • Nov-2012
    • New York Review Books
    • eBook
    • ISBN: 1590176588
    • ISBN13: 9781590176580
    •  
    • Nov-2012
    • NYRB Classics
    • eBook (Kindle)



View the Complete J.F. Powers Book List