The novel picks up on many of the same characters introduced in the first novel, but some decades have elapsed as it takes place in modern time. The themes of the first novel remain as it deals with the toxic culture and the effects on families and Catholics dealing with their work environments. Retaining the faith in such environs and the dulling of conscience while compromising are again addressed. In this novel though Catholic healthcare is an important element of the plot and many things we have seen on the headlines and discussed on blogs is there. The diminishing of any real Catholic component as compromises with the Culture of Death become routine.

These subjects do not present a pretty picture as our culture does not present one and it is no surprise this is almost a dystopian-like novel. But like our faith, this is a novel not without hope and there are triumphs among the characters amid the setbacks and difficulties they encounter. Things don’t always come out rosy, but some characters strive to do what is right regardless. For me I find a lot of authenticity in what the author writes and that extends to the characters and to the plotting. The same goes for the dialogs of the various characters which seem quite natural. This also could be classed as an in-your-face Catholic novel in that the commentary via the characters is quite forthright and an accurate depiction of what the Church teaches.

One aspect of the novel is the human embryos required for ESCR and other research and aspects considering how they are obtained. The disgraced Korean doctor who was experimenting in human cloning pressured women he worked with to donate their eggs and I suspect the international attempts to get human eggs and fertilize them is just as bad if not worse in setting up a distribution system. The truth about IVF and the destruction of so many human persons also plays a role in this novel.

I quite enjoyed this novel as so much of the content is right up my alley and the authors views seem to coincide with my own. I heard the author Brian Gale a couple of times on Al Kresta’s show and I was impressed with both his knowledge and what he had to say. His background in the business world was certainly a springboard for his understanding in this world and the themes the novel addresses. I’m looking forward to the final installment of this trilogy.

Fatherless dealt with the issues of woefully under-informed Catholics trying to live happy lives and wondering why things didn’t seem to fit. Motherless takes place a generation later and visits the sticky moral issues that are a natural outgrowth of an insidious contraceptive mentality and a culture that is marked by moral confusion. Motherless takes on the themes of reproductive technology, frozen embryos, stem cell research, international trafficking in human parts, end-of-life issues, and the tragedy of how individuals in big business can be complicit in evil, often without realizing it. Mainly, Motherless makes us ponder the jaw dropping consequences of technology operating apart from any moral reference point.

The main characters are all back, alive as ever and twenty years older: Maggie Kealey, divorced mother and nurse now CEO of a large Catholic hospital; Michael Burns, the colossally rich New York advertising exec, and Joe Delgado, CFO of a biotech company. All have families and desire to live truly faith-filled lives but things get interesting when it becomes apparent that there are high costs associated with challenging the culture of death.

Something remarkable about Motherless is how eerily familiar it all is. You know these people, these are issues you live with every day. But Motherless invites readers to revisit these familiar scenes from the perspective of a well-informed Catholic. The author gets to the heart of our morally ailing culture with the literary precision of a scalpel slicing directly into the infected area. It makes for a compelling read. If it seems a little preachy, it is, but Brian J. Gail is trying to do in 500 pages what catechetics has done poorly for two generations.

While the message of Fatherless resonated so well with the older generation, as it condemned the devastating fallout in the aftermath of Vatican II, younger readers will really “get” Motherless. The issues are up-to-the minute and the scenarios reflect the predominance of fuzzy moral thinking that infests the culture and with which young people are all too familiar. It is part of his success that Gail demonstrates empathy for the dilemmas of modern man: the pressing need to generate income, the pain of infertility, the difficulties in relationships. Still, he reminds us that in all these cases, there are real choices to be made, the consequences of which are eternal.

Overall, the book’s message is uplifting. Whatever the trials of the characters in Motherless, we are left with the truth that this life passes away. To have lived our days on earth in love, marked by integrity and self-gift, all with an eye toward our eternal destination of union with God, is to have seized the message to finding lasting happiness. It is a message that Brian J. Gail’s Motherless teaches well.

While Fatherless was set in Philadelphia in the late 20th Century, Motherless moves forward about 20 years and revisits many of the same characters as they have aged and moved on to different stages in their lives. The captivating characters from Fatherhood are back: Father Sweeney, a priest who encountered a crisis of faith in the previous novel but has grown stronger and more steadfast since, Maggie Kealey, a Catholic woman strong in her faith and values, Joe Delgado, an executive in the pharmaceutical industry who must wrestle between his faith and his career, and Michael Burns, the engaging ad executive who won our hearts in Fatherless for standing up for his beliefs despite the cost. Father Sweeney has grown deeper in his faith and must now struggle with making choices concerning his mother’s Alzheimer’s Disease and also with providing good and faithful counsel to parishioners who rely on him for guidance. Maggie Kealey’s husband left her for another woman 20 years ago, and she picked up the pieces and became a nurse and has since risen through the ranks and has been named the CEO of Regina Hospital in South Philadelphia. Never did she imagine that she’d be immediately tasked with navigating the waters of insuring that her institution is both faithful to Catholic teaching and profitable at the same time. I think that the most interesting parts of this storyline involve Joe Delgado and Michael Burns and their struggles to live their faith despite the pull of society and especially their careers. Delgado is an executive in the pharmaceutical industry and Burns is the head of an advertising agency, and each is asked to ignore his Catholic faith and what he knows is a steadfast position of the Church in order to do his job. Gail does a terrific job of showing the struggles that these men face with their consciences as they try to discern and rationalize their choices.

The focus of Motherless is on in vitro fertilization, cloning, and genetic manipulation, and I think that the genius of Gail’s writing is that, while this is a fictional piece, there is much that could very well become our reality. Some of the struggles that Maggie Kealey faces as a new CEO of a Catholic hospital are doctors who prescribe contraceptives and refer patients out for treatments that aren’t approved by the Catholic Church–struggles that are mirrored in hospitals and medical practices in reality. The genetic manipulation technologies that are discussed in Motherless are real and the ”Big Fix” proposed by Delgado and Burns’ bosses is chilling to consider but also not out of the realm of imagination.

Motherless offers one author’s imaginings of where these new discoveries and technologies could be leading us, and those imaginings should give us pause as we consider what we are really getting ourselves into. Brian Gail’s Motherless is an engaging read with realistic and likable characters. I was very pleased with the development of the story and will encourage others to read it as well. If this review has you intrigued, then check it out for yourself and let me know what you think!

This book is full of real life characters struggling with the same moral issues we all face.  Not just the simple ones, but the more complex moral issues that are being thrown at us by modern society.  Do you continue to work for an employer who is supporting immoral causes?  Do you encourage the infertile couple to go against the teachings of their faith and explore modern fertility treatments in an attempt to conceive? Do you ignore a lack of annulment and delve into a romantic relationship anyway?

This book explores the problems faced by the Catholic Church today by walking you through the daily life of several Catholic families. You meet folks who are just like the ones you see on Sunday in church and like those who you don’t see in church anymore.  You meet folks yearning to learn more and those who have decided it is ok to consider Catholicism as a cultural identity rather than a faith.  This book challenges you to consider if you are learning enough and doing enough to support your own faith life.  It challenges you to consider if you are going through the simply going through the motions or if your faith means something else to you right now.

One particular paragraph in the book stood out to me as I was reading.  While giving a talk to his congregation, a priest in the book says:

“The taproot of all the problems in the Catholic Church today is unworthy and
sacrilegious Communions. . .The problem we now have, and it is pandemic, is too many
people believe proper reception of Holy Eucharist is simply a matter of individual
conscience.  There is no such thing as mortal sin, short of murder. . .There is no need for
confession and absolution.  No need for penance and repentance.”

This book is a very easy and quick read.  While it does challenge you to think, it is easily a book you can share with your high school age kids.  It is a book that can spark discussion and dialog.  I am eagerly awaiting the release of the third book in the trilogy later this year.

This review was written as part of the Catholic book reviewer program from The Catholic Company. Visit The Catholic Company to find more information on Motherless. They are also a great source for serenity prayer and baptism gifts.

Firmly set in the present moment, Motherless reintroduces us to old friends tempered by the intervening twenty years of experience since the setting of Mr. Gail’s best selling first novel, Fatherless. These characters still sing, evidently drawn by a writer remarkable not only for his keen observation of the human condition, but also for his fierce love for humanity. Uniting the disparate worlds these people inhabit: health care, Madison Avenue advertising and bio medical research, Motherless captures a comprehensive snap shot of the most critical issues of our time.

Where Fatherless focused on the personal and social effects of the Sexual Revolution and the contraceptive Pill, Motherless picks up these threads and exposes the magnitude of the perversion to which those personal decisions have accommodated us. The contemporary reality of international black markets for human eggs and sperm and the farming of embryonic human children for laboratory research is rendered simultaneously more horrifying and more personal through Mr. Gail’s careful narration of the interplay between human frailty and the diabolical design which enables it.

For anyone who has struggled to reconcile our culture’s embrace of the promised benefits of the “Life Sciences” revolution with a natural revulsion at their advertised price, the literal consumption of our own young, Motherless lifts a veil. The plot illustrates connections between our most intimate decisions and the national and international policies that seek not merely to change the world, but to fundamentally alter the very nature of Man.

This ongoing story exposes the systemic sin that permeates modern life so as to enmesh us ever deeper in the culture of death even as it erodes our ability to make conscious decisions to avoid evil, or even our awareness that there are any such decisions to be made. The narcissism which characterizes contemporary man necessarily impacts every aspect of his existence, but the interrelation of these superficially distinct pathologies can be difficult to discern amid the complexity that is modern life. The unique power of art to clarify our own experience constitutes the greatest gift of this book.

As an example, a dinner party conversation set in the aftermath of the stock market crash of October 2008 becomes both a sobering history lesson and a metaphor for the larger human condition. Discussing the origins of the crisis in the shifting importance of America’s financial services and manufacturing sectors, the inhabitants of Narbrook are confronted with the unpleasant reality that our situation has been presaged by the experience of the Spanish, Dutch and British Empires. “Once an empire stops making and shipping things and focuses mostly on moving money around, for all intents and purposes, it’s over.” Evidently no realm of human experience is immune from the insatiable demand unleashed when the natural “price” of any pleasure is removed.

Of course, these are universal human concerns, but as a self-consciously Catholic novel Motherless particularly explores the unique resources which the Catholic Church brings to this battle. From uncatechized lay people right up to the Church hierarchy we are called to obey the dictates of conscience, informed and strengthened by the word of God, the Magisterium, and our Lord in the Eucharist. Mr. Gail does not flinch from the real pain of couples seeking artificial fertility treatment, or from the material concerns which must inform the decisions of Church leaders. Neither does he minimize the cost of poor choices. As Motherless makes clear, the stakes are high at every level, and the costs of abdicating this sacred trust are commensurately so.

For all the horror exposed on its pages, Motherless remains essentially uplifting. Even in the face of persistent evil we are reminded that there is always a greater good, and Mr. Gail brings this good to his characters in deeply satisfying ways. Their fates reinforce our hope that firing in a furnace may be a necessary prerequisite for our success in even greater battles still to come. And, finally, these good people remind us that no defeat, not even death, can undermine the eternal victory of a life lived in the service of God.

Some may ask if this book is preachy, yes it is, but that is its goal and it does succeed without ruining the story.  At times it feels pushed but most of the times the discussions that come up make sense in the circumstances, such as in a Theology on Tap meeting.  If one can learn how to accept a book that preaches it is an amazing read. While the book is both long, just over 500 pages, and spiritually deep, it is an interesting read that draws the reader in and doesn’t let them go until they finish. While Fatherless may have been hard for the younger generation to enjoy, Motherless is the book for the children of the 1980’s and early 1990’s. It approaches the issues that are being dealt with now, and we will have to deal with as we begin to marry and begin families.  I recommend this for all those 18 and over, and hope you add it to your Christmas list.

Set in the present day, this novel is scary–because all of this could happen. I am left wondering exactly how much of this is happening; it’s clear that some of it definitely is.

Building on the story from the first book in what is planned to be a trilogy, Motherless picks up several years after Fatherless leaves off. All the major characters from the first book play main roles in the second as well. While this book can stand alone, I definitely think that the first book is important in that it sets the stage for plot events in this one.

While the first novel takes on the entertainment and birth-control industries, this book focuses on reproductive technology and embryonic stem-cell research. I can see this novel having a more widespread appeal, as its plot is more prophetic of what is soon to come if things continue on their current path, rather than blatantly condemnatory of past events (as the first novel in the series was.) However, it is no less challenging to the reader, who will feel encouraged to examine his choices and his conscience. The struggles of the characters in Gail’s novels, including the clergy, make them all the more real to the reader and do not fail to inspire.

The third book, titled Childless, is scheduled to be published in the fall of 2011.

WARNING: Don’t start reading this book if you’re only going to have a little bit of time here and there to devote to it, because you will be sucked in to the story. This book kept me up past my bedtime–I couldn’t stop reading it. Highly recommended!

Gail’s talk focused on the destructive effects of the 1960s Sexual Revolution, in which preexisting conditions of social volatility – brought about in the first half of the 20th century by industrialization and war – erupted in unprecedented ways. Gail acknowledged that his generation of Baby Boomers, by taking on a contraceptive mentality toward sex, had “devalued the currency of fatherhood,” and left their descendents suspicious of God-given responsibilities.

The results of this “devaluation,” he said, were “ruinous to the body and to the soul,” causing a “cataclysmic identity crisis” for his generation and their descendents. But, Gail asserted, many Catholic bishops and priests failed to respond to this crisis, instead shrinking from presenting the fullness of Church teaching about human sexuality.

The consequences of contraception, and its unquestioning acceptance by many Catholics, figured heavily in Gail’s first novel “Fatherless.”

Most strikingly, Gail expressed his opinion that the Sexual Revolution itself –to which he ascribed millions of deaths from surgical and chemical abortion – represented a mere prelude to a “biological revolution.” In that future age, Gail speculated, “man will attempt to nullify God” by destroying the lines between biology and technology, perhaps attempting to become a new “transhuman” species that fuses natural and artificial life.

In the face of such bleak prospects, Gail said that men have a special responsibility to “awaken, educate, and challenge” society, beginning with their own families and extending into the workplace and civic life. Not only priests, but also husbands, fathers, and all men have a special vocation as leaders who “facilitate man’s greatest adventure,” the journey of Christian discipleship.

Authentic male leadership, Gail indicated, is not domineering, but able to focus on what is best in the lives of others. Men who find their true identity and vocation in Christ, he said, must show others how to “find themselves in him.” Through this way of spiritual fatherhood, he said, “the light of Christ in families” becomes manifest, and the Church can experience renewal for what Gail speculated was its “final conflict” with hostile forces.

CNA asked the author, a former Fortune 500 CEO, to comment on the continuing crisis of finance and debt in America and many European countries, to which he had alluded near the beginning of his talk. Gail said that the same widespread lack of love and respect that had damaged marriage and the family in those countries was now being felt in the economic sector, with employers “offshoring work and … not providing a fair and just wage.”

Asked about the positive aspects of technology that accompany the potential abuses he described, Gail was more upbeat. He observed that “new methods” of evangelism are developing alongside a “new ardor” among young people to spread the Church’s message around the world.

In spite of the many dangers, Gail remarked, “it’s a great time to be alive.”

Gail’s second novel, “Motherless,” will be released November 15.

The story looks at the moral dilemmas facing three Catholic families who seek guidance from a young associate pastor. One case explores the way in which the pharmaceutical industry achieved cultural and governmental approval of oral contraceptives in spite of the serious medical risks to women. The second case follows the marketing of premium cable channels and the infiltration of smut as entertainment into the homes of unsuspecting families.

The third case is a little less clear. I suspect that Gail wanted to show that contraceptive use undermines marriage, but he also pulls in themes of clerical pedophilia, mental disorder, and demonic oppression without ever providing a satisfactory resolution. Thus, it becomes unclear what drives the actions of the third family’s father. Take away the extraordinary circumstances of his daughter’s behavior, and things might well have turned out differently. Of the three families in the novel, the plot for the third was the least satisfying for me as a reader.

The three plots are woven together into a fourth story line that follows the ministry of a priest who, at the beginning of the tale is just entering his second year after ordination. The over-arching theme of Gail’s novel might be the way in which the Catholic Church lost its moral voice in the ‘60s and ‘70s and only started to recover that voice under the leadership of Pope John Paul II. The bishops and dissenting theologians are particularly singled out for their sins of omission (for the bishops) and commission (for the theologians).

Overall, the book provides an important focus for discussion, even if it does fall short in some areas. I will certainly recommend it to anyone interested in the threat posed to the family by the prevailing American culture.