This Funny Life

“We never know, do we? We never know how many days we’ll be given or how we’ll go. There are no guarantees. Only hopes and dreams.”

An infant is left on the doorstep of Saint Michael’s Orphanage in the winter of 1936 with only an engraved medallion to mark his identity.

Marvin Saint Michael grows up under the watchful gaze of the nuns and priests, yet his upbringing is anything but loving. Marvin learns from an early age to keep his mouth shut, to obey, and to refrain from questioning the authority figures that surround him. For when one disobeys, severe repercussions are handed out…

When Marvin is fourteen years old, a girl enters Saint Michael’s after a tragic accident took the lives of her parents. Eva Murphy captivates him. She isn’t like any other girl that Marvin has ever met. He is irrevocably drawn to her, and after mere moments with her at his side, Marvin knows his life is about to change.

Then, chaos breaks out at Saint Michael’s, and Eva is thrust into the middle of it. Marvin knows he and Eva must escape the confines of the orphanage before it’s too late. But where have the nuns taken Eva? How will he find her? And if they succeed in breaking free, can they possibly make their way in the world with only the clothes on their backs… and each other?

Spanning seven decades, This Funny Life is a tale of courage, resilience, and hope. And at its core, it is a story of forgiveness and acceptance of one's past actions that inevitably alter the course of not only one's own life but the lives of those one loves.