A priestly friend of mine handed this title to me with a smile after he read and enjoyed a short story I wrote that carries the subtitle, “A Parish Drama in Three Acts”. I wrote the story on a whim, a dare-suggestion from a friend, and found the exercise unexpectedly delightful. Its focus on small-town politics and family/church drama evidently led my associate rector to think of The Adventures of Reverend Samuel Entwhistle, a farce of sorts set in a mid-1950s Episcopal church. It would be difficult to think of a tighter niche than “audience for 1950s Episcopal church politics”, but as it happens I am a resident of that tiny domain. I love small-town character dramas, and I’ve read part of the Mitford series which has an Episcopal church as its setting. The Adventures of Reverend Samuel Entwhistle see the aforementioned Reverend accepting the call to a larger parish than his own, one that provides a handsome rectory that has no less than five bathrooms. His acceptance letter declares that he looks forward to bathing in a different bathtub each night of the week, cleanliness being next to godliness. Unlike the modern penchant for setting murders and such in cozy settings, here the antagonists are a normal part of the ‘cozy’: they are an overweening choir director, a crucifer who holds the Cross in a strange way that makes dramatic sense to him; other people in the church who have not found an arcane tradition they would not die on a hill for, and bishops trying to impose new Sunday School curriculum on the church. As you might guess, it’s faintly absurd, almost like Max Shulman were trying to write with something stricter than a G-rating. It’s sweet in its way, too, especially for someone like myself who likes the midcentury setting, but as mentioned this has an extraordinarily niche audience. Quote one of my coworkers: “So the entire audience for this book is basically…you.”

Related:
Friday the Rabbi Slept Late, Harry Kemelman
The Mitford series, Jan Karon