The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God

John R. Powers “The Unoriginal Sinner and the Ice Cream God”, CBI, 1977, 330 pp

This book is the last of a triology; the first in the series, “The Last Catholic In America” is a book about the author’s Grammar school education in a Chicago 1950s Co-Educational Catholic school; the next, “Do Black Patent Leather Shoe Really Reflect Up?” covers the authors 1960s high school years in an all-boy Catholic school; lastly, this current book is about a blue-collar young man’s college years. The protagonist, Tim Conroy, brings to mind Holden Caufield and what Holden would likely have been like in college had he been an Irish Catholic.

One of the more interesting parts of the book involves Tim’s friendship with Caepan, an older man who runs a neighborhood service station. For instance, one day Tim leaves a note in Caepan’s station addressed to God, the next day Tim gets an answer, in writing, from God. This exchange of notes continues periodically, although the two never discuss it. Some of the best thoughts in the book are in the answers from God concerning Tim’s questions about sex, career, and family. Like Holden, Tim has quite a battle in trying, or not, to grow up.

Some interesting excerpts from the book:

Pg. 5: For the first part of my life, I served the sentence of childhood for the crime of growing up.

Pg. 90: All kids lie occasionally. I was an exception. I lied all the time. I lied even when the truth would have fit better, out of force of habit. My parents, who for years told me there was a Santa Claus, and Easter Bunny and that if I ate a good breakfast I’d grow up to be big and strong, became enraged whenever I lied to them.

Pg. 298: Message from God: Concerning your dilemma with kids, I’m working on a solution: inflatable children. On those days when you feel like taking some naïve little creature to the zoo, or your feel like having an audience for your life, you just inflate as many kids as you like.

For those other times, when you don’t feel like getting up in the middle of the night, when you want to eat a quiet dinner, or you’re fed up with going to parent teacher conferences, you just let the air out of them.

Inflatable children, however, are a new product and are not yet out on the market. Some parents don’t realize this. They think they already have them.
Signed: God