A Theory of Expanded Love, a hilarious novel about a young girl coming of age whose quirky main character Annie Shea is caught in her enormous Catholic family between belief, reality and the seismic social events of 1963.
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A Theory of Expanded Love is a 1963 coming-of-age story featuring the quirky, adolescent voice of Annie Shea, a gullible skeptic trapped in an enormous military, Catholic family. This lovable, odd-ball character, discoverer of family secrets and desperate for attention in the swarm of her clan, tells fantastic lies to elevate her tribe to the holiest of the holy rollers in her parish. When “The Hands” visit her late at night and her sister becomes pregnant ‘out of wedlock’, Annie courageously wrests salvation from the tragic sequence of events set in motion by her parents’ betrayal.
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A Theory of Expanded Love is a coming-of-age story featuring an unflinching, gullible skeptic, trapped in an enormous Catholic family in Pasadena, California, in 1963.
Tired of the ramshackle low-status life in her huge family, Annie sees her chance to raise their rank closer to heaven when a family friend is shortlisted to become the first American pope. Number six of thirteen children and frantic for attention in the swarm of her boisterous clan, Annie tells fantastic lies to elevate herself — and her tribe — to the holiest of holy rollers in her parish.
This is a family that finds parking spaces by praying to Saint Anthony and fights communism by reciting the rosary; a family ruled by a Navy Commander armed with a belt and wielding phrases ‘Rank has its privileges’ & ‘Bombs over Tokyo!’ A family full of quirky characters each with his/her own unique method of survival.
1963 is the year of bomb shelters, desegregation and Martin Luther King. With a Catholic president in the White House, every family owns a car and a black & white tv. The Baby Boom is in full swing; women who get pregnant ‘out of wedlock’ are routinely sent away in secret to give up their babies.
This is the year Annie begins to observe and question (often hilariously) everything she has been taught. Frequently diminished for being ‘dramatic’ Annie is punished when she discovers family secrets and abandoned when ‘The Hands’ visit her late at night. This and the scandal of her sister’s illegitimate pregnancy threaten to kibosh her Catholic family’s stellar reputation, something Annie’s father will do almost anything to uphold. Annie plots to catch her night-time tormenter herself, but her bold confrontations lead to more punishment and she runs away from home to be with her pregnant sister, Aggie, who is now in active labor at The Mission, and still determined to save her baby from forced adoption.
When Aggie boards a bus instead of admitting herself into the hospital for her labor and birth, (where her baby can be taken from her) Annie realizes her sister’s profound vulnerability and her own inexperience. In spite of her age, Annie courageously wrests salvation from the tragic sequence of events set in motion by her parents’ betrayal.
Between the pope’s death, the birth of the civil rights movement, the assassination of President Kennedy and New Year’s Eve, Annie grapples with the bewildering logic of Catholicism, the military mindset, the meaning of loyalty — and her own Theory of Expanded Love.
