Finished Mo 12/18/23
This is one of my hardbacks that I had never read, but I'm so glad that I finally got around to reading it.
Pronounced: Oscar 'Eee- way- los'
Although it is Christmas themed, it is NOT a Christmas novel.
A man reviews his life. He was a foster child who is adopted by a man who was also a foster child.
He becomes an illustrator in NYC during the fifties and sixties.
His son wants to become a priest. Both father and son are practicing Catholics and their faith is deep and not corny.
Christmas Theme: He marries the love of his life around Christmas and his son is murdered during the Christmas season.
From Google Books:
"When we first meet him in the 1950s, Mr. Ives is a devoutly religious man who, despite his beginnings in a foundling home, has fashioned for himself an enviable life. A successful Madison Avenue advertising illustrator, Ives is married to a vivacious, artistic woman, Annie, who shares his aesthetic passions and religious beliefs. Together they raise their children, Robert and Caroline, with remarkable fair-mindedness and moral judgment. Ives, who knows nothing of his own natural ancestry, is profoundly drawn to the Spanish cultures and language that have begun to flourish in 1950s New York City. Even after he has risen to a vice-presidency at the advertising agency, he continues to live in his unfashionable neighborhood in Upper Manhattan because he feels at home among his multi-ethnic neighbors, especially his closest friend, Luis Ramirez, and his family. But Ives' perfect world is violated when seventeen-year-old Robert is gunned down by a teenage thug at Christmas, just months before the young man is to enter the seminary. Having once considered himself as possessing "a small, imperfect spiritual gift", Mr. Ives finds himself lost without his son, doubting not only the foundations of his life but his belief in God. Overwhelmed by grief and threatened with a loss of faith in humankind, Ives must wrestle with his doubts and struggle to regain spiritual peace, perhaps even embracing the troubled young man who stole Robert's promising life."
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