[In Ascent Into Hell a] handsome Irish-American lad in Chicago is promised to the priesthood at birth as his mother's life hangs in the balance. When he grows up, he dutifully takes his vows but is only partially successful in repressing his sexual feelings. This is the world of the American Catholic novel, and its subject is sex and more sex. All the characters are stereotypes, and the plot is utterly familiar: There is hanky-panky by the priest's bad-boy brother, and some silver ingots wind up at the bottom of a swimming pool. The priest goes to prison on a bum rap. But his sexy former teenage sweetie, who has become a bank president, comes to his rescue. Greeley … tries to justify this foolishness by maintaining: "There is not a character or incident in my story, I think, without a scriptural counterpart, and not a story in scripture...