But Few Are Chosen: A Different Path to Coming of Age

...but few are chosen is the story of three boys coming of age in the mid-1950s. Growing up in working class Irish Catholic neighborhoods in the Northeastern United States, they are desperate to escape lives of loneliness, petty crime, and violence. At the age of thirteen, ready to enter high school they each come to the same life changing, and possibly life-saving decision to enter a seminary and begin their journeys toward the priesthood. The book chronicles Mike, John, and Ollie's fears, frustrations, hopes, and dreams while they proceed on their very unique path to adulthood via St. John s Atonement Seminary in Montour Falls, New York. There, the three meet, eventually become lifelong friends, and begin the transition to being successful and contributing members of society. Lives that would undoubtedly have ended poorly are turned around in the structured, orderly, caring, and predictable life of the seminary. For the first time the boys come to realize that life is more than just raised voices and clenched fists. Led by priests on the faculty they learn responsibility, restraint, patience, and concern for others. They develop determination without aggression, and apply their new-found abilities to study, sports, and relationships.