Media Kit
Manning “Jim” O’Connor is a longtime Western Pennsylvania trial attorney and former Duquesne Law adjunct professor.
His debut novel, A Separate Satisfaction, brings his experience in law and his Catholic faith to a story about grief, justice, conscience, and redemption.
About the book
A Separate Satisfaction is a story of grief, faith, justice, and the difficult path toward redemption.
After a devastating accident claims the lives of his wife and children, successful attorney Declan Brady walks away from his law practice and eventually enters the Catholic priesthood.
Six years later, he is sent back to his hometown to help save a struggling parish. But what begins as an assignment to rebuild a church soon draws Declan into painful secrets, institutional wrongdoing, and questions his superiors would rather leave unanswered.
As the instincts that once made him a formidable lawyer resurface, Declan must confront not only the failures of the institution he has sworn to serve, but his own unresolved guilt—and decide what faithfulness demands when obedience and conscience no longer point in the same direction.
Book Details
Title: A Separate Satisfaction
Author: Manning J. O’Connor
Publication date: September 15, 2026
Hardcover: $29.99 | 310 pages | ISBN: 978-1-960378-55-2
eBook: $9.99 | 310 pages | ISBN:
Genre: Fiction
Subgenre: Literary
Available at: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Books-A-Million | Bookshop.org
Bio
Manning J. (Jim) O’Connor is a trial lawyer with more than forty years in Pennsylvania’s state and federal courts, and a fourth-generation member of a family long rooted in the bench and bar. His practice has centered on high-stakes employment and commercial litigation and complex corporate disputes. For twenty years, he taught litigation and trial practice as an Adjunct Professor of Law at Duquesne University.
A Roman Catholic by formation, practice, and temperament, O’Connor is drawn to ritual, tradition, and places of continuity. A Separate Satisfaction is his first novel, a work of literary fiction shaped by a lifelong appreciation of Yeats, Wilde, and Joyce (though he credits his wife as his steady center and greatest influence). He is a classically trained woodwindist, a self-taught drummer, an avid golfer and gun club member, and rarely will you find him without a good cigar. Born in Johnstown, he has lived in Pittsburgh for fifty years.
Praise
“A masterful debut novel that combines brilliant, elegant prose with page-turning storytelling.”
— KEN GORMLEY, New York Times best-selling author & chancellor of Duquesne University
“A profound exploration of love, regret, sorrow, and redemption.”
— TOM GREALISH, Chairman & CEO of Henderson, Inc.
“O’Connor writes with the precision of lawyer and the humanity of a priest.”
— JOLEEN LAUFFER, President of Aires
“Thought-provoking and ultimately hopeful … an ambitious and heartfelt novel.”
— JAMES C. BLY, JR, Co-Founder, Principal & Chairman Emeritus FODIS
Excerpt
Chapters 1 | Read
Interview topics
From the Courtroom to the Page: What 40 Years in Law Taught Jim About Storytelling
After more than four decades as a trial attorney—and 20 years teaching litigation and trial practice—Jim has spent much of his professional life constructing narratives, questioning competing versions of events, and trying to understand motive. He can discuss how those skills shaped A Separate Satisfaction, and how much of Declan Brady’s lawyerly instinct to question, investigate, and argue reflects his own experience.
Law, Conscience & the Pursuit of Justice
Declan may leave his law practice behind when he enters the priesthood, but he never stops thinking like a lawyer. Jim can explore what happens when a lawyer’s instinct to seek evidence, challenge authority, and demand accountability collides with a priest’s obligation to obedience—and what the novel asks about the relationship between law, morality, justice, and conscience.
Faith vs. Institution: Remaining Faithful When the Church Fails
A Separate Satisfaction confronts clergy abuse and institutional wrongdoing without becoming an anti-Catholic novel. A practicing Catholic himself, Jim can discuss why he wanted to portray both the profound good the Church can do and the devastating consequences of its failures—and whether challenging an institution you love can itself be an expression of faith.
Writing About Clergy Abuse as a Practicing Catholic
Why revisit one of the most painful chapters in the modern Catholic Church? Jim can discuss the responsibility he felt in approaching clergy abuse through fiction, his decision to resist easy heroes and villains, and the novel’s larger questions about protecting the vulnerable, institutional accountability, forgiveness, grace, and whether reconciliation is possible without first confronting the truth.
Why Lawyers Make Natural Storytellers
Courtrooms and novels have more in common than we might think: characters, competing narratives, evidence, motive, conflict, persuasion—and an audience deciding what to believe. Jim can talk about the similarities and important differences between telling a client's story in court and creating fictional characters whose motivations and moral choices are rarely black and white.
A Creative Second Act: Becoming a First-Time Novelist After a Lifetime in Law
After building a long and successful legal career, Jim is publishing his first novel. He can discuss where Declan Brady came from, the books and writers that stayed with him for decades, what surprised him about writing and revision, and why it is never necessarily too late to pursue the creative work that has been waiting in the background.
Review copies & contact
Digital and print review copies are available to media, reviewers, booksellers, librarians, and podcast hosts.
Contact: Stephen Knezovich, stephen@ascenderbook.services