The Junkie Priest: Father Daniel Eagan S.A.

by John D. Harris

PA series about an only child and his huge best friend, a mastiff named Mudge.

Paperback

First published April 1, 1964

Reviews

[Kristi]

Difficult read at times; sometimes because of the clinical language, often because of the heartbreaking subject matter. Fascinating, inspiring and difficult life led by a unique but committed man of God.

[Maureen]

I read this book in junior high (middle school). I was very impressed with the heroic Father Daniel Eagan. It was good to know that there was a good person out there trying to help the people who were addicted to drugs. I saw things on the news and knew about movies (Looking for Mr. Goodbar) about drugs and other terrible things that were going on during the 1970s. This gave a sense of hope.

[El]

Father Daniel Egan spent decades trying to help women addicted to drugs and prostitution in New York. He was concerned by the fact that when they left jail or the detention center they had no safe environment in which to turn, forcing them to return to their old haunts which in turn led to them picking up their drug habits, prostitution, etc. In a society which turns their back on the sick and the addicted, Father Egan fought for their safety. He visited the detention center and made himself readily available for any woman upon their release who needed a few bucks. More often than not the women used those few bucks for drugs but the good Father Egan continued to help. In the end he fought long enough and hard enough to convince hospitals to admit women going through withdrawal and he started The Village Haven, a halfway home of sorts that women could turn to during the day to keep them off of the streets - unfortunately it was directly above a bar and the license required no one remain on the premises overnight, so all women had to leave by 11:00 p.m. Father Egan saw the holes in the systems and did what he could to save every woman who turned to him.

I found this book in the trash at my old job and snagged it from Certain Death. Coming across it now - this battered, deteriorating paperback from the 60s - seemed funny so I finally sat down to read it. It is just about as entertaining as watching Reefer Madness as the drama is so intensely amusing which was obviously not at all the point of this book. The book was obviously meant to scare people straight, keep them off the streets and out of the clutches of drugs. The people in those positions are unlikely to ever to read this book, so I imagine the Bible-toting suburbanites are the ones who quote from this book. The dangers of heroin are frightening, but the moralising in this book was rather heavy-handed at times.

Sadly it was good for a chuckle here and there, and I do wish there are more people like Father Egan out there, but other than that the intensity the journalist who wrote the book was going for was at times too amusing to make the impact he probably desired.