[4] Olga Treskovna, a young woman from Coaltown, a Pennsylvania coal-mining town, receives a role as an extra in a movie adaptation of the life of Joan of Arc.

It also inspires a sense of warm-hearted community, as an atheist union leader finds religion and the owner of the local coal mine develops a feeling of brotherly love.

Altar boys later discover that two statues, one of the Archangel and the other of Virgin Mary, have shifted on their pedestals, turning to face Olga's coffin.

If not joy, there was at least an awakening interest in something besides just to struggle for money and as I rushed here this morning there is another change -- a hope, a glow, a living flame in the faces -- in the eyes turning toward St. Michael.

After years of work on the novel, Janney wrote The Miracle of the Bells as "a loving remembrance of the real-life actress Olga Treskoff.

The release of the book and later the motion picture "brought worldwide fame to St. Michael's", as fans traveled to Glen Lyon to visit the actual locations.

[5] A review of the book in Time magazine opined: "As a novel, The Miracle of the Bells is one of the worst ever published; as a business proposition it has cornered the schmaltz market and provides a role for every star in Hollywood.

"[8] Albert E. Idell in The Philadelphia Inquirer described it as "badly written, verbose and over-long," filled with stock characters, and "mawkish and sentimental to the point of being maudlin".

Yet, Idell wrote that "the real miracle of Russell Janney's novel" is that, despite these flaws, the book "achieves remarkable power" and is "almost impossible to put it down.

Ettelson wrote that the book's chief flaw was its "unconscious sacrilege" in treating religion "as if it were something to be promoted by a publicity ballyhoo a la Hollywood.

Mr. Janney, writing for people who are pretty close to immune to loftiness of any kind, offers the purge of promise -- of hope of escape from petty sordidness, of renewed belief in living faith, of life beyond the grave.

He continued: "Mr. Janney's fantastic piece of fiction is significant not only in that it shows the effect of the movies on other cultural media, but also for the relations it suggests between religion and Hollywood.

His anger grew after reading the screenplay, and the "last straw" for Janney was the decision to include a song for Sinatra to warble in the role of Father Paul.