The Three Ys Men

by Joseph Pearce

This first novel from the author of the internationally best-selling biography of Chesterton, Wisdom and Innocence, is best described as a tale in the tradition of Chesterton or Belloc. It charts a journey across Sussex in the company of three mysterious ghosts -- Yore, the Ghost of Sussex Past (the thinly disguised ghost of Hilaire Belloc); Yo , the Ghost of Sussex Present; and Yet, the Ghost of Sussex Future. En route, the three spirits have many misadventures and can seldom agree on anything, constantly arguing about the relative merits of tradition and modernity in relation to time and eternity. There is a surprise appearance by Tim, the Ghost of Time Uncompleted (the thinly disguised ghost of H.G. Wells) and the final chapter culminates in several twists of the tale.

200 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author with this name on GR

Joseph Pearce (born 1961) is an English-born writer, and as of 2004 Writer in Residence and Professor of Literature at Ave Maria University in Ave Maria, Florida; previously he had a comparable position, from 2001, at Ave Maria College in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is known for a number of literary biographies, many of Catholic figures. Formerly aligned with the National Front, a white nationalist political party, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1989, repudiated his earlier views, and now writes from a Catholic perspective. He is a co-editor of the St. Austin Review and editor-in-chief of Sapientia Press.

Reviews

[Anne Hamilton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wordplay, along with stories about words and their origins, features strongly in this—well, I'm tempted to say quaint, but that would be an injustice—book. Three spirits of Sussex, Yore, Yo! and Yet—spirits of past, present and future—accompany the narrator on a ramble through philosophy, history, theology and literature as much as through any countryside.

It seriously helps to like Chesterton or Belloc to get the most out of the story. I truly loved the substitution of "godget" for "gadget" and "inferno" for anything with an internal combustion engine.