Eschews the exotic settings and cameo appearances by popes and presidents that are stock-in-trade. Shaw seems content to paint on a smaller canvas, and the resulting portrait is remarkably true to life and strangely compelling. The prose style is rough-hewn, even inelegant, but somehow it seems well suited to narrate the lives. The prose style is rough-hewn, even inelegant, but somehow it seems well suited to narrate the lives of these earthy characters. A rookie priest assigned to chaplain's duty, who has to do his growing up after he already has the collar on and people are calling him father. Shaw's elucidation of the pull of faith is about as enlightening an answer the questioner is going to get.