By Susan G. Cole
Now Toronto
November 19, 2009
http://www.nowtoronto.com/books/story.cfm?content=172372
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Reporters on The Bishop’s Man’s Giller triumph have described the book as straightforward storytelling, but that’s not quite right. The story goes back and forth in time to track a man’s growing disillusionment with his role as priest, shedding a powerful light on what goes on behind the scenes in the culture of the Catholic clergy.
Father Duncan is the bishop’s fixer, the guy called on to root out corrupt priests. For years he’s made sure sexual abusers get moved around with no public scandal or personal accountability. When he’s sent to his hometown in Nova Scotia to deal with a growing crisis there, it looks like his personal doubts – he has his own secrets – might threaten his professional duties.
Veteran CBC journalist Linden MacIntyre expertly conveys the sickening logic of abusers and the Church’s determination to do nothing about the growing influence of that thinking. And although the narrative takes a dip while Duncan checks into rehab, MacIntyre grabs it right back and maintains a breathtaking tension through to the end.
Personally, I was surprised by MacIntyre’s Giller victory. But then, The Bishop’s Man hit the Giller short list the same week that further allegations surfaced about child pornography among priests in Nova Scotia. Plainly, the story of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church continues to have a powerful urgency.
Yes, this is a technically skilful and important book, but it’s not even close to being the best book published in Canada this year.
Write Books at susanc@nowtoronto.com
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