Leah Looks At: The Plastic Priest
GENRE: Weird Fiction
AUTHOR: Nicole Cushing
PUBLISHER: Cemetery Dance
RELEASE DATE: December 2023
PREORDER
Cover art by Harry O. Morris
Mother Kaye and her many names are revealed with explanations of each, an illustration of the multilayered earth-onion, vestments that constitute her life.
This Episcopalian Priest feels she can never live up to her well-loved predecessor, the predispositions and presumptions of her mother, and as a result has become disenchanted with her faith and occupation.
As we approach her interpretation of the Eucharistic metaphor, all is restored. We bear witness to the stressors of the pandemic and its toll upon the Church.
Mother Kaye’s crisis of faith continues, yet she perseveres.
Parallels slice between this fictional town and ones of which some of us have become too familiar. Prime employment in this village offers little in the way of a comfortable future for its inhabitants.
A message received from the Episcopalian Diocese encourages a more casual setting to offer the Church’s salvation to a wider base of congregants. Doubting her presence at the Church, a visit from a prior priest confirms her suspicions. Many questions plague the woman expected to remain steadfast in her conviction, and the descent into unreality begins.
The play with outside forces that question her capability as a practicing Episcopalian Priest were expected by this reader, as many women in a position stereotypically held by men can and have attested.
With this entry, Nicole Cushing continues to march firmly into territories of the unexpected.