Alms

Catholic New Times, Dec 14, 2003 by Ted Schmidt

Alms by Cynthia Macdonald, Penguin Canada, 2003.

First time novelist Cynthia Macdonald brings a sharp critical eye to the pretensions of the rich and to the societal romantization of the poor. Martine Craythorn, the shy and confused only child of a failed marriage of a French-Canadian soup heiress and a university prof who traipses off to the Third World, genuinely wants to do good and finds herself caught up in the strange world of the Fiat Lux Refuge run by the engaging Fr. Clifford Kearney in downtown Toronto. Some good insights into character and the greed decade, but the clues were there all along for poor Martine that there was something not quite right at the refuge.