The Neon Madonna

In this disappointing first novel, Father Jerry O'Sullivan, a Vatican diplomat suffering from ulcerative colitis, is sent to a tiny Irish village to serve out the rest of his days. The idiosyncratic man of the cloth (he drives a new Alfa Romeo and is heir to a bootlegger's fortune) is ill prepared for the turmoil that erupts when two local women claim to have seen the town's neon-haloed madonna move and weep. The Catholic Church is no sacred cow in this occasionally comic look at provincial politics and piety, which features a devout matron whose religious fervor has less to do with spiritualism than with moral rectitude. Aiming beyond satire, Binchy attempts a full-scale portrait of life in a contemporary Irish hamlet, embracing also the hard-bitten way of life that turns villagers to drink and suicide. Unfortunately, with its meandering plot and overcrowded cast, the novel sinks under the weight of its own ambition. (Mar.)