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The Bishop's Man
A Novel
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Publisher:
Random House Canada
ISBN:
0307357066, 9780307357069
Language:
English
Statement of Responsibility:
Linden MacIntyre
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Summaries
Good story-line but rambles in places & hard to follow.
Quotes
“You know the eagle's secret?" he said. "He never lets us see him scavenging. You only see him soaring. Or sitting high up, somewhere out of reach. Kind of superior. He's very discreet about the mundane, the mortal. Like the priesthood used to be. Out of reach. It's easier to mythologize that way, priesthood and eaglehood both.”
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Author Linden MacIntyre talks about "The Bishop's Man"
Journalist and author Linden MacIntyre discusses his Giller Prize-winning novel "The Bishop's Man" and how it reflects and reflects on recent real-life events.
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Comments
I enjoyed - yes, genuinely enjoyed reading this book much, much more than I'd anticipated. I've always admired Linden MacIntyre as a journalist and assumed he would have an ideally balanced perspective, of both compassion and acuity, for such controversial subject matter as the sexual abuse scandals associated with the Catholic church. That admiration and confidence in the author's vision still didn't give me the stomach, though, for a story so closely ripped from the headlines, with the news of more allegations against another Catholic priest hitting right around the time "The Bishop's Man" was longlisted, then shortlisted for the coveted Giller Prize. Long past the time that the book won the prize, I've finally read it, and am glad I did.
The voice of Father Duncan MacAskill is dry at first, blandly and reticently stating the facts of his acknowledged work within the Catholic church, among parishes in the Maritimes, as something of a fixer for the bishop. His more benign moniker is "The Bishop's Man", but many of his fellow priests refer to him as the "Exorcist" for his behind-the-scenes work defusing situations and relocating men of the cloth who have strayed into various forms of scandal. He questions his role and his own faith as the job entails not only covering up unsavoury situations, but also increasingly includes running interference with communities, families, the police and media.
Father MacAskill's words and observations may be spare at first, but they are not unaffecting. As he joins a new parish close to his birthplace and slowly establishes new connections and re-establishes dormant family connections, his is not the voice of someone who doesn't care, but that of someone who has cared much too much and is shell shocked by what he has seen and experienced. As he gets thrust more and more reluctantly into situations that test his conscience, he learns harshly that things not what they seem, in what unfolds dramatically before him in the present, but also in pivotal chapters of his own past life.
In the end, the bishop's man realizes with some relief and humility that he is just a man, but also beholden to neither the bishop and what the bishop represents, nor to anyone else. That realization leaves much unknown for MacAskill at the end of the book, but leaves the reader glad to have seen him along his journey.
I really enjoyed this book, and thought it was well-written. It was interesting reading how priests are human and flawed. The excessive drinking surprised me! It reminded me of Vincent Lam's Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures becauses it puts a human face on a institution and its representatives that we in the past have respected and even feared.
Surprisingly good - although MacIntyre has the writer's background I was wary of the topic. It's hard to do well. However, McIntyre manages to write with compassion, disgust, and a world weariness that makes the subject palatable. I stayed up til 3 AM reading the book - it's worth the loss of sleep!
As a Catholic, I recommend this book to other Catholics. We all share in the guilt and shame that has transpired through the sickening acts of some disturbed people. Well written, deserving of the Giller.
MacIntyre's story is timely with a minimum of sordid details. Like real life, however, it offers little or nothing by way of solution.
Don't know how this ever won a prize. Too much dialogue in sticatto sentences and not enough plot. I started flipping after a few pages and finally flipped to the end.
Good book, but a bit difficult to follow at times. Felt like I should go back and reread passages.
McIntyre's book is the winner of the 2009 Scotiabank Giller prize.