Play Audiobook Sample
Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Faith Audiobook
Play Audiobook Sample
(3.02) - 968 listener ratings
Quick Stats About this Audiobook
Total Audiobook Chapters:
Longest Chapter Length:
Shortest Chapter Length:
Average Chapter Length:
Audiobooks by this Author:
Publisher Description
A key comic writer of the past three decades has created his most heartfelt and hard-hitting book. Father Joe is Tony Hendra's inspiring true story of finding faith, friendship, and family through the decades-long influence of a surpassingly wise Benedictine monk named Father Joseph Warrillow. Like everything human, it started with sex. In 1955, fourteen-year-old Tony found himself entangled with a married Catholic woman. In Cold War England, where Catholicism was the subject of news stories and Graham Greene bestsellers, Tony was whisked off by the woman's husband to see a priest and be saved. Yet what he found was a far cry from the priests he'd known at Catholic school, where boys were beaten with belts or set upon by dogs. Instead, he met Father Joe, a gentle, stammering, ungainly Benedictine who never used the words "wrong" or "guilt," who believed that God was in everyone and that "the only sin was selfishness." During the next forty years, as his life and career drastically ebbed and flowed, Tony discovered that his visits to Father Joe remained the one constant in his life-the relationship that, in the most serious sense, saved it. From the fifties and his adolescent desire to join an abbey himself; to the sixties, when attending Cambridge and seeing the satire of Beyond the Fringe convinced him to change the world with laughter, not prayer; to the seventies and successful stints as an original editor of National Lampoon and a writer of Lemmings, the off-Broadway smash that introduced John Belushi and Chevy Chase; to professional disaster after co-creating the legendary English series Spitting Image; from drinking to drugs, from a failed first marriage to a successful second and the miracle of parenthood-the years only deepened Tony's need for the wisdom of his other and more real father, creating a bond that could not be broken, even by death. A startling departure for this acclaimed satirist, Father Joe is a sincere account of how Tony Hendra learned to love. It's the story of a whole generation looking for a way back from mockery and irony, looking for its own Father Joe, and a testament to one of the most charismatic mentors in modern literature.
Download and start listening now!
"This is an excellent book that I would recommend to anyone. It is about enlightenment, and not the religious kind only. Hendra's biographical/ autobiographical story is funny, sad and honest. It made me call and email several friends to say I was thinking of them and that I loved them. A must read."
— Carrie (5 out of 5 stars)
Father Joe Listener Reviews
-
" Loved Father Joe, a gentle soul full of wit and wisdom. Too bad I can't say the same for the author. He was unlikable and it ruined the story of Father Joe. Father Joe deserved better. "
— JanB, 2/5/2014 -
" I think I listened to this one on tape/cd and wasn't that impressed. Didn't leave me feeling the way so many felt. I don't know. "
— Sarah, 1/28/2014 -
" The middle portions are slow, but that only makes the ending more amazing. "
— Gary, 1/22/2014 -
" This book reminded me that it's not necessarily the action that may be wrong or right in itself. It is about the intent behind the action. "
— Anne, 1/12/2014 -
" I forget how long ago I read this book - probably three years ago - in audible. I liked it. It wasn't great but seemed a truly heartfelt rememberance of a mentor by a guy who did not think he'd lived up to the mentor's expectations and determined to do better. "
— Linda, 1/9/2014 -
" I loved the first part about spirituality. The second was all name-dropping and he's kind of a jerk. "
— Emily, 1/4/2014 -
" The start of the book reads like a high school English student trying to impress his teacher with his vocabulary. Painful. There are bits and pieces of wisdom and sound teachings, but I never felt an attachment to Tony. "
— Mike, 12/24/2013 -
" Interesting autobiographical story but lost it's momentum in the middle. "
— Lucy, 11/29/2013 -
" Interesting biography by National Lampoon author Tony Hendra, although Fr. Joe is a far more interesting person than Mr. Hendra. The last half of the book is not as well written as the first. It may be worth skipping to the last chapter at some point. "
— Jeanne, 11/20/2013 -
" Incredible memories about a truly pious man! "
— Lindsay, 10/9/2013 -
" Required reading for people who want to be human. "
— David, 9/11/2013 -
" This is an excellent read; whether one is religious or not; deep insights; and not always those that one would expect. "
— Mary, 8/27/2013 -
" Loved this book. This is a "keeper". It's probably time for me to read it again. "
— Michelle, 6/27/2013 -
" Perhaps one of the worst books ever written - so bad that the only reason I'm reviewing it is to make sure no one wastes their time on this one. The writer is self-important and uses his "faith" as a platform to name drop, fabricate, and exaggerate. I wish I had this time back. "
— Karla, 5/2/2013 -
" First Book Group book for me! 4/05 "
— Debbie, 5/1/2013 -
" I enjoyed it, though I no longer know whether to believe it. (See How To Cook Your Daughter, ISBN 0060820993.) "
— Risa, 8/14/2012 -
" A great one to read if you feel overwhelmed with life "
— Maggie, 8/4/2012 -
" I am not usually one for this kind of memoir, but this book really has stuck with my mind. Tony Hendra was a kid in school with Stephen Hawking, performed with the Pythons, was in this is spinal tap. His story of life paths and transformations was really something! "
— Katherine, 7/8/2012 -
" A funny and poignant spiritual story, by one of the guys in This Is Spinal Tap. Who knew? "
— Bethany, 6/20/2012 -
" I read this years ago and have found it encouraging and true despite disappointment with how Hendra chooses his path. The truth is that sometimes we're all Tony Hendra and sometimes we all need to be Father Joe. "
— Betsy, 5/8/2012 -
" The relationship between a young boy through manhood with a priest was touching. I was particularly impressed with Father Joe who was kind, unjudgemental and wise. "
— Fran, 1/10/2012 -
" Perhaps one of the worst books ever written - so bad that the only reason I'm reviewing it is to make sure no one wastes their time on this one. The writer is self-important and uses his "faith" as a platform to name drop, fabricate, and exaggerate. I wish I had this time back. "
— Karla, 4/19/2011 -
" Father Joe is a wonderful (real) character. Tony Hendra sounds nsn. "
— Merry, 2/9/2011 -
" Remember the guy who played the band agent in "Spinal Tap"? This is his conversion story. Very moving. "
— Briana, 1/1/2011 -
" Absolutely loved it! A powerfully moving story. "
— Joe, 12/10/2010 -
" I loved this book, especially the conversations in which Father Joe, a Benedictine monk and priest, reveals simple wisdom to the author, Tony Hendra, the original editor of National Lampoon. "
— Jan, 7/28/2010
About Tony Hendra
Tony Hendra is an English satirist and writer who has worked mostly in the United States. Educated at St. Albans School (where he was a classmate of Stephen Hawking) and Cambridge University, he was a member of the Cambridge University Footlights revue in 1962, alongside John Cleese, Graham Chapman, and Tim Brooke-Taylor.