Father Arnold

Former rock band singer and now Catholic priest, from the novel Reservation Blues by Sherman Alexie.

Father Arnold, priest of the reservation Catholic Church, didn't care much about the band one way or the other. He thought the whole thing was sort of amusing and nostalgic. He'd been a little boy, maybe five years old, when Elvis appeared on "The Ed Sullivan Show" and threw the entire country into a righteous panic. Arnold would never have thought that Indians would be as judgmental as those white people way back when, but he was discovering exactly how Catholic Spokanes could become.

"Listen," he said to one of his more rabid parishioners, "I really don't think G-d is too concerned about this band. I think hunger and world peace are at the top of His list of things to worry about, and rock music is somewhere down near the bottom."

Father Arnold had waited tables in a restaurant and sung in a rock band for a few years after he graduated college, before he received his calling into the priesthood. They'd played mostly fifties songs, like "Teen Angel" and "Rock Around the Clock" with Father Arnold on lead vocals. He'd had a good voice, still had a good voice, but now the music he sang was in church and was much more important than the stuff he used to sing at American Legion dances and high school proms.

Robert Arnold's former band is not named.

See also

• Coyote Springs]
• Betty and Veronica

External Links

• Sherman Alexie's homepage