Breakfast with the Pope
Susan Vigilante, an average Catholic wife from Long Island, woke up one morning in the romantic Italian hillside near the ancient village of Castel Gandolfo and had breakfast with Pope John Paul II.
How did she get here?
Breakfast with the Pope is the funny, endearing, searing, and relentlessly honest story of a woman on a pilgrimage, a woman who has failed for years to become the writer she longs to be, who yearns for the children she is unable to bear, who seeks to find the promised God of love amidst the wreckage of failed human relationships. This is a book you will never forget, an often funny, always deeply moving spiritual memoir about seeking faith in the midst of doubt, compassion in the midst of suffering, and above all choosing love even knowing that it never comes without pain.
“Susan is not an 'average woman,' all disclaimers to the contrary. She is a well-published author and is known to her online fans as 'Desperate Irish Housewife.' That gives you a picture of her writing style, which is highly self-revelatory and honest, at times achingly so. This is her first book, but she will have great difficulty in topping it.
"In brief, she has written something like a modern-day personalized 'Canterbury Tales,' a story of pilgrimage — in this case to an improbable breakfast with Pope John Paul. Along the way, she intersperses stories and descriptions of various characters whose lives are intertwined through their relationship with Susan.
"The stories center around Susan's friends and family and a recurring motif: the Vigilantes' infertility and their excruciating efforts to conceive a child, told tragicomically in detail.”
— Father John McCloskey,
in The National Catholic Register
Reviews
“Read this book. A Christian "‘Eat Pray Love,’ it will change forever how you think abut faith. Like life itself it alternates between being funny-as-hell and emotionally wrenching, an inner glimpse of the experience of barrenness: spiritual, physical, and professional, which is overcome by one woman's stuborn and relentlessly honest search for faith. Vigilante's appreciation of the beauties of Italy and her deepply personal portrait of John Paul II are a great gift to thse who love either.”
— Maggie Gallagher, Amazon editorial review
“A wonderful read! This heartwarming, deep, soul searching, irreverent, and often hilarious true story is a testimony to human spirit, friendship, love and deep faith. I am not catholic, but I was touched to the core by Susan's honesty and willingness to be so open with all of us, her readers. Her life struggles are the ones we all must grapple with. I read without stopping and wished there were 100 more pages!”
— Kate Feldman, Amazon purchaser