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Homo Novus
Piety, compassion, lust, love... Feelings all the more potent when you are a Catholic priest confined to your hospital bed by an AIDS diagnosis, being comforted by the seminarian you sexually abused as an adolescent. It's Holy Week 1987. The priest is Fr. Linus Fitzgerald, and the young seminarian is Orlando Rosario. Both are shocked and shaken as they reflect on their desires and dreams, secrets and sins, hopes and faith, and the paths that brought them together. In Homo Novus , Gerard Cabrera illuminates with deep empathy and stark emotional honesty the journey these two men take separately and together - a journey that began with a violation of trust and leads them to places - sacred and profane - that they never imagined.
- GenresFiction
258 pages, Paperback
Published October 17, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 8, 2024
I cried so much and I need more
Read
November 15, 2022Set in New England in the 1980s, Cabrera’s debut novel excavates the lives of an older and a younger Catholic priest, both of whom are struggling to reconcile their gayness with their faith and institutional indoctrination. Their stories are steeped in scriptural contemplation, organizational contradictions, and the tension between the Church’s hardline orthodoxy and the changing modern world. Based on the eruption of child abuse scandals in the Church over the past two decades and the subsequent public conversation about systematic cover ups and whether there’s a place for gay men in the priesthood, Homo Novus is a novel that will likely provoke reactions from many readers, Catholic and non-Catholic alike.
Read the rest of my review at Out in Print
Read the rest of my review at Out in Print
October 17, 2022
‘Viaticum – food for the journey’ – a radiant new novel!
New York City author Gerard Cabrera is highly published in literary journals and now makes his novel debut with HOMO NOVUS – a keenly written exploration of gay priests and their need for love and lust, and a timely resource for public understanding of clerical sexual ‘flaws.’ Cabrera’s novel is all the more important as it addresses Latinx aspects of LGBTQ+ issues.
Providing a sensitive stage for his novel that deals with AIDS (the ‘other pandemic’). Cabrera opens his novel in the hospital – ‘Linus Fitzgerald listened to his wristwatch. It wasn’t a ticking sound exactly, and he’d never noticed it before, but the second hand struck with a faint vibrato as if a tiny man trapped beneath the glass were trying to escape. Against the silence of the room, his watch kept time for the beeping monitors, the drip of liquid through a tube, and the whisper of the oxygen pump. When he tried to open his eyes, he saw the machines wink and pop at him, obscene and cheerful beside his bed.’ That lyrical prose creates the airborne tenderness that enhances the story.
The story description on the book’s back cover follows: ‘Piety, compassion, lust, love... Feelings all the more potent when you are a Catholic priest confined to your hospital bed by an AIDS diagnosis, being comforted by the seminarian you sexually abused as an adolescent. It's Holy Week 1987. The priest is Fr. Linus Fitzgerald, and the young seminarian is Orlando Rosario. Both are shocked and shaken as they reflect on their desires and dreams, secrets and sins, hopes and faith, and the paths that brought them together - a journey these two men take separately and together - a journey that began with a violation of trust and leads them to places - sacred and profane - that they never imagined.’
Cabrera’s novel is luminous – a story that we need to understand, offered in manner that allows entry into themes too seldom addressed. Very highly recommended. Grady Harp, October 22
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book
New York City author Gerard Cabrera is highly published in literary journals and now makes his novel debut with HOMO NOVUS – a keenly written exploration of gay priests and their need for love and lust, and a timely resource for public understanding of clerical sexual ‘flaws.’ Cabrera’s novel is all the more important as it addresses Latinx aspects of LGBTQ+ issues.
Providing a sensitive stage for his novel that deals with AIDS (the ‘other pandemic’). Cabrera opens his novel in the hospital – ‘Linus Fitzgerald listened to his wristwatch. It wasn’t a ticking sound exactly, and he’d never noticed it before, but the second hand struck with a faint vibrato as if a tiny man trapped beneath the glass were trying to escape. Against the silence of the room, his watch kept time for the beeping monitors, the drip of liquid through a tube, and the whisper of the oxygen pump. When he tried to open his eyes, he saw the machines wink and pop at him, obscene and cheerful beside his bed.’ That lyrical prose creates the airborne tenderness that enhances the story.
The story description on the book’s back cover follows: ‘Piety, compassion, lust, love... Feelings all the more potent when you are a Catholic priest confined to your hospital bed by an AIDS diagnosis, being comforted by the seminarian you sexually abused as an adolescent. It's Holy Week 1987. The priest is Fr. Linus Fitzgerald, and the young seminarian is Orlando Rosario. Both are shocked and shaken as they reflect on their desires and dreams, secrets and sins, hopes and faith, and the paths that brought them together - a journey these two men take separately and together - a journey that began with a violation of trust and leads them to places - sacred and profane - that they never imagined.’
Cabrera’s novel is luminous – a story that we need to understand, offered in manner that allows entry into themes too seldom addressed. Very highly recommended. Grady Harp, October 22
I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book
December 13, 2022
Gerard Cabrera’s Homo Novus is a beautifully written, deeply disturbing fictional look at a relationship between a gay Monsignor and his much younger lover, a coupling that lasts from the younger one’s time at school at age fourteen until his twenties as he is on the cusp of being ordained as a priest himself. This timely topic is sensitively treated by Cabrera, as he probes the depths of both characters while pointing out that not only is this a forbidden relationship in terms of their Church positions but also the fact that it amounts to child sexual abuse. As the Monsignor is dying of AIDS (the novel is set in the 1980s,) we see how the Church treats him while seeing his young lover come to terms not only of how he has been treated by this man but also whether he loves the man or not. Cabrera’s novel is an exercise in sensitivity and quite evocative as his subject matter is appalling and yet we readers are led into enough empathy to see the situation and while condemining it, somewhat understanding it and at times feeling deeply for both characters. Another preripheral eye-opening plot point is the relative wealth this Monsignor has as he, like stereotypical gay men, lavishes his lover with designer clothes and fragrances. They may be men of the church, but they also are enamored of the perks of the secular world. Finally, I have to comment on the book’s beautiful production. The cover is absolutely stunning, utilizing a photograph that catches the eye and entices.
July 11, 2025
Homo Novus, by Gerard Cabrera is an intense read.
The story revolves around a prominent RCC priest and the seminarian who was his protege, with whom he had sex since he was a minor. Their relationship dynamic evolved as they both aged, becoming more complicated as the (now) young man's confidence grew, a third wheel in the person of another charismatic and hot former seminarian joined the fray, and the priest became ill with HIV.
The backdrop to their relationship was naturally RCC priestly settings - seminaries, events, retreats, where conversations and interactions were dominated by RCC doctrine, philosophy and internal (eternal) politics. This aspect of the book, while very well-written, was difficult for me due to my own visceral distate about the topic.
In that soul-crushing environment, men of all ages were trying to perform their required duties to the organization while also tending - often unsuccessfully and even disastrously - to their own personal needs. The story presents key moments in the lives of the core characters and how they impacted and were internalized by the men the characters ultimately became.
While not easy reading topically, the book is richly narrated, enlightening and thought-provoking on many important levels. Gerard Cabrera did an excellent job of telling the story not by overtly condemning characters and behaviors but by presenting them in their human context.
We're also given a smidgen of a slice of the RCC's inner workings - insights that are important (IMO), given the RCC's continued prominence in the world and increasing grip on the levers of power in the U.S. (But, again, the book does not pass judgement on any components of the story, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions).
Relating a story like this as profoundly as in this book demonstrates excellent writing skills. I would gladly read more by this author.
The story revolves around a prominent RCC priest and the seminarian who was his protege, with whom he had sex since he was a minor. Their relationship dynamic evolved as they both aged, becoming more complicated as the (now) young man's confidence grew, a third wheel in the person of another charismatic and hot former seminarian joined the fray, and the priest became ill with HIV.
The backdrop to their relationship was naturally RCC priestly settings - seminaries, events, retreats, where conversations and interactions were dominated by RCC doctrine, philosophy and internal (eternal) politics. This aspect of the book, while very well-written, was difficult for me due to my own visceral distate about the topic.
In that soul-crushing environment, men of all ages were trying to perform their required duties to the organization while also tending - often unsuccessfully and even disastrously - to their own personal needs. The story presents key moments in the lives of the core characters and how they impacted and were internalized by the men the characters ultimately became.
While not easy reading topically, the book is richly narrated, enlightening and thought-provoking on many important levels. Gerard Cabrera did an excellent job of telling the story not by overtly condemning characters and behaviors but by presenting them in their human context.
We're also given a smidgen of a slice of the RCC's inner workings - insights that are important (IMO), given the RCC's continued prominence in the world and increasing grip on the levers of power in the U.S. (But, again, the book does not pass judgement on any components of the story, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions).
Relating a story like this as profoundly as in this book demonstrates excellent writing skills. I would gladly read more by this author.
September 18, 2024
A young Puerto Rican boy comes under the influence of a predatory priest with more than a smidgen of self-awareness. What good can come from this? But Gerard Cabrera's complex and moving first novel is more than a soft-focused look at the damage of one particularly troubling Catholic legacy -- in the early days of AIDS, no less. There are no pure heroes in "Homo Novus." Not by a long shot. For starters, everyone lies. To get what they want. To protect themselves. As the case demands. Oh yes, this book is populated by complicated characters, each damaged in his own way and each doing damage in his own way too. That Cabrera is able to tell this story with what might be described as a gentle verisimilitude may make some readers -- such as me -- uncomfortable, periodically. Yet this approach actually makes the novel's final conclusion that much more touching. There's a push-pull effect at work in much of "Homo Novus" which makes the ending's cathartic embrace all the more powerful. It's easy to say that "God is love" but it's another to illustrate what a sacrifice such a belief ultimately requires.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews