Hail Mary Corner. Brian Payton

Taut, compelling, and remarkably assured, Hail Mary Corner thrusts readers into unfamiliar territory past an emotional frontier we all must cross: the uncertain ground between adolescence and adulthood. High on a cliff above a pulp-mill town on Vancouver Island, sixteen-year-old Bill MacAvoy and his friends lead cloistered lives while other boys their age run free. it may be the fall of 1982, but inside the walls of their Benedictine seminary they inhabit a medieval world steeped in ritual and discipline–a place where blackrobed monks move like shadows between doubt and faith. Isolated from the outside, Bill and his friends develop a unique and often hilarious culture. Schooled in the virtues of sacrifice and service, they instead learn to challenge, resist, and wield power over one another’s lives. On the road to certain expulsion, Bill discovers two secrets: one concerns Brother Thomas, the monk who watches his every move; the other involves his best friend, Jon. In Bill’s hands these secrets prove dangerous weapons. Handled carelessly, they trigger an event that threatens to haunt him for the rest of his life.