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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
Glenscott Thomas Copper’s Angels Dance on the Head of a Pin follows Scott Rankin, a small red-haired Catholic boy from 1962 La Crosse, after his family’s breakup pushes him from St. John’s parish school toward Chicago. Scott wants to become the priest his Italian grandmother imagines, but daily Mass makes his body feel unreliable, and confession turns desire into something he cannot name. His father’s absence has already marked the family in the North Side housing projects, and Chicago gives Scott a different education when Great-Uncle Ode Rankin, an old criminal lawyer, takes him in. Then Scott meets Willie Taylor, a girl trapped in Professor Anthony Moretti’s house, and protecting her becomes the choice that takes him far beyond the childhood he thought he was living.
Glenscott Thomas Copper’s Angels Dance on the Head of a Pin is such great literary fiction, and Copper writes childhood with a funny, generous eye. The best part is the way places become alive around Scott as the book moves from schoolyard games toward real danger. Copper has a real knack for turning settings into cinema, the standout being Indian Hill, where sand cliffs full of swallows make the edge of the projects feel like a secret country. Sam Clements, Scott’s first real friend at St. John’s, is fantastic; the Clements' house gives Scott a brotherhood he badly needs. Grandmother Thunder, the Ho-Chunk elder who shelters Scott in Wisconsin, gives the story its most beautiful sense of home through medicine and welcome. This is an extremely long novel, but it is immersive, and it is not bogged down by gratuitous loquatiousness. It is the perfect fit for coming-of-age literary fiction aficionados. Very highly recommended.
