Another Kind of Hero

By Edwin L. Millet

The novel Another Kind of Hero features a young Roman Catholic priest, Vincent Dwyer, who  after completing his seminary studies in the turbulent mid-1960’s, follows his vocation in the footsteps of three uncles who became priests in the same diocese a generation before. Newly assigned as an associate for a veteran pastor at his boyhood parish, he encounters Julie Leffert, a distraught parishioner and a young mother of six children, one windswept night when she arrives at the rectory seeking counseling for her troubled marriage. In the course of assisting this attractive but distressed woman, Vincent  realizes that he is falling in love with her and her large brood of children. Responding to what he sees as a greater calling to marry Julie and help her raise her children, he leaves the priesthood to follow what he now feels is his true vocation. Intra-familial conflicts and many trials ensue as he undertakes a long, difficult journey with his newfound family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Oct 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499048308

Edwin L. Millet

I always wanted to write, but like Vincent Dwyer, the protagonist in Another Kind of Hero, I knew that my primary responsibility was to work with my wife Patricia in raising our children, our son Jason and our daughter Therese. So teaching became for me the mainstay of our income, a more reliable means of providing for a young family just starting out in life. I began teaching at Lakeland Senior High School in central Florida, and ended my classroom career in the public school system of River Forest, Illinois.  When our own children started school, Patricia returned to the workforce as a social worker with the Division of Child and Family Services and with Catholic Charities. Teaching also allowed me to pursue other jobs in our society when school was not in session, such as radio disk jockeying/announcing; phosphate mining; motel management; retail sales; bartending; tutoring; Chicago Transit Authority bus driving; school bus driving; security guard; taxicab and limousine chauffeuring, etc., all of which, I feel, rendered insights into the array of jobs which Vincent Dwyer pursued to keep his family together in Another Kind of Hero.