Awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Literature in 1962, The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor shattered reigning cultural stereotypes of priests and parish life when it was first published. Father Hugh Kennedy is a recovering alcoholic, committed to his vocation yet struggling with the demands of it. As he returns to Boston to repair his damaged priesthood, he is drawn into the unruly world of the Carmodys, a prosperous Irish family teeming with passion and riddled with secrets. The Edge of Sadness is ultimately the story of spiritual aridity and loneliness giving way to grace and hope.