Description
Temporarily out of stock
Title: Lapsed: Losing Your Religion Is Harder Than It Looks
Author: DUX MONICA
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 07/04/2021
Imprint: ABC BOOKS
Price: $35.00
Publishing status: Active
What happens when a good Catholic girl goes AWOL? From devout ten-year-old performing the part of Jesus in a primary school play to blaspheming, undergraduate atheist, Monica Dux and her attitude to the Catholic Church changed profoundly over a decade. Another ten years and she’d calmed right down.
Now she was just ‘lapsed’. Then, on a family trip to Rome, her young daughter suddenly expressed a desire to be baptised. Monica found herself re-examining her own childhood and how Catholicism had shaped her. Was Catholicism really out of her system or was it in her blood for life? In Lapsed, Monica sets out to find the answer. Her investigations lead her to test a miracle cure in Lourdes and to steal from a church. She visits the grave of a headless Saint who claimed to be married to Christ (and wore a wedding ring made of his foreskin to prove it), and speaks to cannon lawyers, abuse survivors and even a nun who insists that the Virgin Mary starts her car every morning. She ponders the big questions, such as would Jesus really make a great dinner party guest or would he end up calling Einstein a blasphemer? And, far more seriously, given what she now knows about clerical abuse and its extent, is it enough to turn her back on the Church, or did she have a deeper, more enduring obligation? With the wry humour of David Sedaris and the razor-sharp observations of Nora Ephron, Lapsed is the story of one woman’s attempt to exorcise her religious upbringing, and to answer the question, is Catholicism like a blood group and, if so, is it possible to get a total transfusion? Praise for Monica Dux’Wonderfully witty and wry.’ The Australian’A myth-buster, inquisitive, intrepid and irreverent.’ The Age’Monica Dux is gifted with the rarest ability to marry intellectual rigour, sh∗t-yourself-funny insight and humane tenderness.’ Benjamin Law’Her writing has made me laugh, cry and swear.’ Jane Caro
ISBN: 9780733340819