About Butter and Whiskey: The Ballad of Maggie Doyle
In a small town in Southern Ireland in the late nineteen seventies, Maggie Doyle, a childless and unhappily married housewife, has an affair with a novice priest. When she becomes pregnant, he breaks off the affair, but later she gives birth to a baby, who bears a pair of tiny wings. When the senior priest condemns the infant as an abomination and refuses it Baptism, Father John visits Margaret just once to perform the Baptism himself, then leaves for the mainland. Meanwhile the Vatican sends Cardinal Salvatore, an investigator into miracles, to see Margaret and her by now fatally ailing baby. When the tiny angel dies, Margaret is desperate to save her dead child from the Vatican’s clutches and in a state of unthinkable mental anguish, consumes his tiny body, then lapses into mental breakdown.
The book follows each as they start to rebuild their separate lives. After discharge from hospital, Maggie settles in Covent Garden with her estranged sister, and works as a cleaner in a local hotel, whilst battling with post- traumatic stress and OCD. In a chance meeting in a public house, Maggie becomes friends with a small group of art students and their tutor, Peter. They persuade her to become a model at the nearby art school, and later to pursue her own studies as a painter. Maggie finds another chance at happiness, when it becomes obvious that Peter is falling in love with her.
Jack obtains a teaching post in a Catholic boys’ school in Bethnal Green, when he meets Janet, who is training as counsellor, and Jim. Jack and Jim start a boys boxing club that brings new purpose meaning to Jack’s life. Jack likes Janet, but struggles to commit to a real relationship, tortured by his own sense of worthlessness and guilt for having abandoned Maggie in her hour of need.
The destinies of the main protagonists interweave when Janet becomes college counsellor at the art school, where Maggie is now enrolled on a degree course.
Meanwhile in Rome, Cardinal Salvatore cannot forgive Maggie for cheating him out of establishing the truth about the apparently miraculous birth and has her followed. The development in DNA testing in 1984 eventually provides the proof he seeks, and he travels to London to seek her out.
The fates of the Maggie, Jack, Janet and the Cardinal finally cross on the night of Maggie’s final degree show and Jack at last sees a way to atone for having abandoned Maggie.
This is a story about courage, love and redemption served up with a warm heart and humour. It is a stand alone novel though Maggie’s story continues in the sequel – What Cannot be Cured: The Continuing Ballad of Maggie Doyle
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Author Bio:
Judith S Glover lives in Tasmania with her husband and two cats. She studied Fine Art and Philosophy and worked for many years in the U.K as a psychotherapist. She plays the cello and is currently teaching herself blues harmonica. She enjoys a wide range of literature from Jane Austen to Science fiction and is an avid film buff.