Peep shows, orgies, and secret meetings with priests mark these shadowy transitions. Post–Vatican II, long-haired, friendly priests collide with straitlaced, strict ones. Hippie culture divides the gang in the second part, as it does culture at large. School pranks, class outings, and after-school jobs reveal the boys’ emerging personalities, establishing a high-energy pace. In the first, puberty besets the friends and their classmates. The book’s three parts each focus on distinct kinds of tumult. Chili starts seminary feeling ostracized from his former friends-until a scandal implicates his family. Chili comes home early, disgusted by the San Francisco commune they visited, and learns that his brother is missing and his father is worse off. A high school graduation road trip to California ends in disaster. Angel and Mikey tease Chili over his religiosity. As they enter different high schools, they begin to diverge. Angel seeks a lucrative career in line with his monied family’s traditions.Īfter school, the three meet in a retired fallout shelter to drink, smoke, and plan shenanigans. While his father drowns his sorrow in beer and manual labor, Chili is determined to fulfill his dead mother’s wishes that he care for his younger brother, Jamie, and become a priest. In Steven Schindler’s novel Fallout Shelter, three boys from the Bronx stick together through their Catholic educations, career choices, and crises of faith.Ĭhili, Mikey, and Angel met at St. Set during a turbulent era, Fallout Shelter follows as three Catholic men come of age-and as their friendships change.
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