Reviews on Holy Communion:

Provocative, powerful, insightful, incisive. So much experienced by so many beneath that religious surface! I loved the way the children and their adults during the whole Communion debacle were this squirming uncontrollable human mass of energy, tension and rebellion!

-- Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli, co-winner of the Lambda Award, Victoria, Australia.
http://members.ozemail.com.au/~chiar/mariabooks.htm

Initially I couldn't continue reading this unrelentingly grim book past page 70. I wanted to kill the kid just to put him out of my misery. It brought to the surface many issues I dealt with in my fifties, and I had to take a break.

It ended up as I hoped it would, for which I was grateful! In the context of the boy's hellish life, he triumphs in the only way possible, by confronting the truth and moving forward from there. The quality of writing actually soars near the end, when the boy comes to grip with reality, and is quite superior — literature actually. It's a tougher, bloodier version of "Catcher in the Rye."

-- Robert Bahr, Editor and Publisher, Factor Press

A man cannot cast aside his childhood, though he run from it as he would the devil. He may make of it a burden under which to stumble and fall, or a shield to hide behind, or he may make of it a tool.
----Ann Fairbairn (pseudonym Dorothy Tait), FIVE SMOOTH STONES

When trying to compose my thoughts about the tiny hero in Mykola Dementiuk’s novel, Holy Communion, the above quote seemed to be hand-crafted for him. And the power of Tait’s words nearly made me cry, bringing the initial impact of the book back to me.

Holy Communion is not a book you grab in the airport gift shop and breeze through between Houston and Atlanta. For me, the novel had to be read in increments and—to be truthful—took me quite a while to finish. Not because it wasn’t that good, but because it WAS that good. It was powerful. A gritty, sweet, heart-wrenching, poignant dose of, as the blurb says, the human condition.

I’ve tried to think of an adequate description for the narrative voice in this novel, and the only thing that comes to my mind—and I hope you’ll understand what I mean when I say it—is that Mykola Dementiuk writes in Technicolor with Michelangelo brushstrokes tossed in for pure artistry. For this Texas gal who swears she was a New Yorker in another life, the imagery of the New York streets, the shops, the traffic, the people, the smells, the crummy apartments and stoops, the whole scene, was painted so vividly by the author that I saw the bustling city as clearly as he lived it.
But the hero. The little fellow I fell for. The diminutive kid I wanted to take home with me, to hug, to shelter. Let me tell you about him.

I don’t know his name. He is only called ‘the boy’. He’s seven years old, and it’s the week of his Holy Communion with the Catholic Church. The tyke is abused, both physically and emotionally, by his alcoholic father, his bullying baby-sitters, and a pedophile comic book shop owner. The boy is a bed wetter and often ‘makes in his pants’ during the day, much to his own mortification and the harsh disapproval of the nuns at school.

Dementiuk somehow takes the reader’s hand and guides them into the head of this child in a way I can’t say I’ve ever seen an author do with main character this young.
And that was what endeared me to ‘the boy’. Dementiuk dragged me into this child’s mind so close, so personal, that I WAS the boy. I lived in constant terror of the upcoming Holy Communion, convinced my sins were sending me straight to hell. I was tiny and at the mercy of tired, cross, cruel nuns. I was molested by the pedophile in the comic book store. I was teased mercilessly by my godmother’s daughters who figured a child was nothing more than a doll to play with and torture.

The shocking part of this deep insight into the boy’s psyche was that, in a rare but crystal clear revelation—because I lived the horror through HIS intensely personal and baby-like vision, not my own adult eyes—I saw with great sadness but understanding, how even sick and misguided attention was just that to this little victim—attention.

One of the most important facets of this book, to me, was the fact that we can and indeed DO experience physical and emotional sensations at a young age, long before society has had a chance to hand out the checklist of what’s right and what’s wrong.

In a technique that impressed me—which I thought was genius—Dementiuk chose to assign no names to any of the characters. They were merely the nuns, the priests, the mother, the father, the old bald man in the comic book store. That anonymity somehow put me in the story as the character, right in the middle of the child’s world. And, oddly, gave it a touch bit of a make-believe aura, in which I could pretend—if the reality of it all was too harsh—that it was not real.

Dementiuk said of Holy Communion: The reality of Holy Communion tormented me for many, many years even before I became a writer. I was just too young to have experienced those religious questions, I thought, and forebodings in my mind but truth to tell I certainly wasn't. I've always been tormented by Christianity forcing me to look upon the good and bad aspects of my daily life and in this way I always went against the norm. I became a rebel pretty early, after all, I had confronted God and found that God to be lacking…or at least that’s what I imagined. After a lifetime of screwing and drinking, with all sorts of drug taking, I found myself defeated with no place left to turn except inwards, into myself. I began, “Screams stirred him. He listened and drifted.” And wrote and wrote. I was ready to look at my past and the world opened up and I never looked back.

Holy Communion was the Lambda Literary Awards Winner 2009/Bisexual Fiction.

Purchase links are, the publisher: http://www.holycommunionanovel.com/
And from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/
His website is: http://www.MykolaDementiuk.com

As I said, this is no breezy read. But it is a commanding read, in a voice which combines eloquence and urban grit to perfection. It is a most unusual look into the deepest, most private thoughts of a child in such detail and soul that could only have been penned by the man who lived it.

And I WILL tell you this. The ending made me smile. The tyke’s quite a little fighter.

-- C, Zampa, http://authorczampa.blogspot.com/

What an extraordinary story! I was so involved with the little boy that at times it was very hard to read, but I couldn't put it down. His point of view was very poignant and had me in tears more than a few times. Mykola Dementiuk really captured the time, too. Historical without lots of clumsy references, just pure description and dialogue to deftly paint a portrait. Mick has a wonderful voice that is unafraid to get into the gritty and the seedy. He knows how to push the envelope and force readers to look at things they don't want to. I have never read anything quite like this before. In my mind's eye, I felt like I was reading a graphic novel told in black and white where the nuns, all the adults, really, were shadowy monsters looming over the poor boy.

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this. I love books that really make me think, that make me uncomfortable and push my sensibilities to the limit. Mykola is an artist with the written word to be sure. I look forward to reading more of his stuff in future so I'll be keeping an eye out for his books.

-- Melissa Bradley, www.myspace.com/melbwrites

Very seldom does a book touch the reader to the extent as that of Holy Communion. Author Mykola Dementiuk takes his audience into the world of a seven-year-old boy’s first Holy Communion in the Catholic Church, and we get to spend the exciting four days of this event with him as we wend our way through a story that is as gripping as it is original. During the time spent preparing for his first communion, the boy in question has to overcome obstacles such as the alcoholism of his father, a nasty accident that befalls his mother, downright mean nuns are in the mix, as are a couple of pedophiles, and babysitters from hell! Throughout all the boy finds his way to cope as he emerges triumphant from these trials not only to receive his communion but also to rise above the problems life has thrown his way. Dementiuk has created a true little masterpiece that is a slice of one boy’s life in the confines of Holy Communion, injected it with his own observations of the world, without becoming preachy or self serving in the process. Recommended reading.
Grade: A+

-- Web Digest Weekly, www.webdigestweekly.com
 

Those who read purely for pleasure, who look upon books as similar to opening a window on a pleasant Spring day, will not be likely to read Mykola Dementiuk’s starkly overcast “Holy Communion” (Synergy Press, 2009). Those, however, who see books as a way to explore all aspects of human nature and the human soul may find exactly what they are looking for within the pages of this far-from-the-mainstream tale. It follows one nameless seven-year-old boy—there is not a single proper name in the entire book—in the seven days leading up to his first communion. The dark and underlying irony of the book is that this emotionally and physically battered young soul should have no need for communion: he’s already lived his entire short life in purgatory. To read it is rather like peeling an onion; removing one layer reveals another.

It may never be made into a musical, but it does sing a complex song to those willing to hear it.

-- Dorien Grey, www.doriengrey.com

(review from glfictionreviews.blogspot.com)

A Look at the Human Condition


In "Holy Communion" we read of a seven year old boy as he prepares for his first communion over a four day period of time. He is forced to deal with several issues--his parents (his mother has had an accident and his father is an alcoholic), the nuns at school, a babysitter who doesn't like him and pedophiles. He is able to deal with the situations by being totally indifferent at first and then by rebellion and defiance. We see the human condition through him and I am quite certain that the boy we read about is the author himself.

Our boy is forced to face things that many do not have to face and also deal with the idea that he has feelings for members of his sex. He is aware of the physical changes that his body is going through and he is aware of the thoughts going through his mind. His preparation for his holy communion also causes him to think of the world in which he lives and he realizes that he really does not like the people (the nuns and the priests) that are associated with the rite of communion. Much like the Jewish Bar Mitzvah, when a 13 year old boy becomes a man in the eyes of Judaism, so the same is true for a Catholic male as he assumes the role of the adult. Our boyis not sure that communion is something that he really wants to do-- in his mind Holy Communion is the same as committing a sin. (It's no wonder where he got this idea after having been educated by nuns and priests who even consider biting fingernails to be a sin). He is wary of everyone and the only person that he trusts is his mother who is in the hospital at a time when he needs her and as he prepared to accept communion.

He has been forced into having sex with adults, both male and female and doing something like this to one so young is certain to have some lasting effect. Because he has been forced into this sexual activity, we must decide if he has committed a sin. Could he have refused? I doubt it with the teachings of the church being used to keep him there.

We do not often see this approach to Catholicism in writing and I am sure that the author has either been threatened with excommunication or he has already left the religion. The book is an eye opener and it is beautifully written. Not being Catholic myself, I learned a lot here and I always love learning when I can do so while reading a really good book. There is a lot to think about here and for me that is the sign of good literature.

-- Amos Lassen, Little Rock, Arkansas

(review from eurekapride.com)