True Confessions (Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: John Gregory Dunne
- First Published: 1977
- Type of Plot: Detective and mystery
- Time of Work: The 1940’s and the 1970’s
- Setting: Southern California
- Principal Characters: Frank Crotty, Lorenzo Jones, Bingo McInerney, Lois Fazenda, Tom Spellacy, Desmond (Des) Spellacy, Mary Margaret Spellacy, Corinne, Brenda Samuels, Fred Fuqua, Dan T. Campion, Sonny McDonough, Jack Amsterdam, Cardinal Danaher
- Genres: Long fiction, Mystery and detective literature
- Subjects: Sin or Original sin, Brothers, Good and evil, Human behavior, Corruption
- Locales: California
The Novel
True Confessions is the story of two brothers, Tom and Des Spellacy. The novel begins and ends in the 1970’s, when Tom has retired from the police department and Des, an ambitious Catholic clergyman, is spending the last of his thirty years of exile in a small, neglected parish. Somehow Tom’s actions have led to his brother’s downfall, and the heart of the novel, “Then” (set in the 1940’s), tells the story that leads to “Now,” the first and last chapters.
The first “Now” section centers on Des’s call to Tom. Why, Tom wonders, is he...
[The entire page is 2063 words long]
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