
Wheat That Springeth Green
Wheat That Springeth Green is a comic foray into the commercialized wilderness of modern American life. Its hero, Joe Hackett, is a high school track star who sets out to be a saint. But seminary life and priestly apprenticeship soon damp his ardor, and by the time he has been given a parish of his own he has traded in his hair shirt for the consolations of baseball and beer. Meanwhile Joe's higher-ups are pressing for an increase in profits from the collection plate, suburban Inglenook's biggest business wants to launch its new line of missiles with a blessing, and not all that far away, in Vietnam, a war is going on. Joe wants to duck and cover, but in the end, almost in spite of himself, he is condemned to do something right.
- Publisher
- New York Review of Books
- ISBN-13
- 9781590176580
- Genre
- Topics
- Priesthood and faithSatire of American consumerismVietnam War era society
Awards
- National Book Award for FictionShortlistedMajor(1988)
- National Book Critics Circle Award for FictionShortlistedMajor(1988)
Other awarded books from J. F. Powers
- Morte d'Urban (2012)1 win · 12 score
- The Presence of Grace (2000)0 wins · 4 score
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