The Wanting Life is Mark Rader’s debut novel. Rader will speak at Boswell Book Co. at 3 p.m. on Sunday, March 1.
Consider all the unlived lives you could have had (or be having). In Mark Rader’s debut novel, The Wanting Life, mortality forces Wisconsin priest Father Paul Novak to reflect on his unlived—and lived—life and the choices he’s made for himself. A wanting life implies a sufficient lacking or absence, and it is these unresolved memories and secret longings that take 70-year-old Father Paul and his caretaker sister, Britta, to Italy in the summer of 2009 after Paul is diagnosed with inoperable stage-three cancer. For closeted gay priest Paul, Italy is the site of both his liturgical study as well as the backdrop of his only love affair with a young man in 1970.
The Wanting Life is a rich and compassionate character study. Beautifully written, it moves masterfully between the years to reveal the tender inner life of Paul. Equally compelling, the novel simultaneously uncovers an expanded family drama through the narratives of his widowed and still-grieving sister and his beloved niece, herself on the cusp of a life-changing decision about whom to love and how to best spend a life. Each character’s authentic humanity is a reminder that life is a love story, however it is lived.
Rader grew up in Green Bay and went to school at Tulane and Cornell University. His award-winning short fiction has appeared in numerous publications. Rader will speak at Boswell Book Co. at 3 p.m. Sunday, March 1.
