Bede Clarke

Cockroach Blood: Betty Dances with Father Paul Bede Clarke

A learned and sensitive priest makes an amazing discovery during a visit to a parishioner's house in 1944. Called to advise a family's precocious and beautiful young daughter on her proposed marriage, he finds himself alternately grappling with lust for the girl and wrestling with complex mystical relationships. The priest is amazed when the cockroaches in the house provide him with a conduit to the ineffable; the spirit world inside and outside the normality of time and space. The roaches advise him on many things and order him to protect the girl's past, present and future interests. He finds himself making spiritual journeys to the South Pacific, where the girl's fiancé and others related to her mission on earth are fighting in the same battle. The priest always arrives at the same time, during the same storm, even though he leaves on his mission on many different nights. He never has much control over the process and he begins to think that he is losing his mind, especially when he and the young girl, Betty, become somewhat entangled. The priest finally must resolve everything and tie up the loose ends. He learns and experiences incredible things on his epic sojourn.