Customer Reviews

The Bishop's Man: A Novel

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The Bishop's Man was the 2009 winner of the Giller Prize which is Canada's top literary prize. Linden MacIntyre is an award winning Canadian journalist and this was his second novel.

The story centers on Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Duncan MacAskill and is told from MacAskill's perspective. MacAskill is the man brought in by his Bishop, the Bishop of Antigonish (rural Nova Scotia, home of St. Francis Xavier University), to deal with problems. These problems often center around indiscretions by certain priests and more specifically sexual abuse. MacAskill's job has been to protect the church by removing the abusers from their situation by usually by transferring them to a distant diocese. He also speaks to the families of the victims to ensure that the scandals never surface. He always begins his conversation with the family by indicating that he absolutely believes what their son or daughter is saying and that they want to discuss what is being done to rectify the situation. Behind his back, MacAskill is referred to by other clergy members as The Exorcist.

As we enter the story, Fr. MacAskill has been transferred as a parish priest to Creignish on Cape Breton Island just of the coast from mainland Nova Scotia. This is very near where he grew up and he knows many of the people. His transfer has been initiated to remove him from some of the controversy that's surfacing about some of the things he and the Bishop have done in the name of the church.

The story focuses on MacAskill's tortured conscience. Although he has disdain for the acts of the priests he has removed from difficult situations, he begins to see the pain that he has proliferated and the crimes that he has covered up. He is a good man at heart who has effectively condoned certain horrific events.

As a parish priest, he bonds with the people and suspects that abuse has occurred in that very place. His need to discover what has occurred is a major plot point in the book.

I grew up a Catholic on the east coast of Canada and was very affected by the material. I have often discussed the topic of abuse in the church with my father who is a devout Roman Catholic. As reprehensible as the actions of certain priests were, I am equally digusted by the actions of senior officials of the church in covering these events up. It is such a shame in that by far the majority of priests that I have met are good people who were motivated by the need to help people. The actions that occurred in real life did a great disservice to them as they were tainted by events that has nothing to do with them and their faith. So, this book brought out a lot of emotion in me.

In this story, clearly Fr. MacAskill and the Bishop have blood on their hands and the Bishop never really seems to get that. MacAskill gets it and seeks to atone for his sins. MacAskill plays the good soldier who is just following orders but the guilt nearly destroys him in the end.

This novel packs a very strong emotional punch. It's difficult to assess how much of that punch is intensified by my background in a Roman Catholic family.

I definitely recommend The Bishop's Man. It is well written and certainly deals with the issues from a different perspective. It does drag a bit in the middle of the book but it's a good choice for the Giller Prize.

I must say that this book challenges the reader. But shouldn't a book that is worth reading do that? Despite the universal themes and the Giller Prize award (by an international jury), 'The Bishop's Man' has been pigeon-holed as a Canadian "IMPORT" by Amazon.com . Why is it an import? It was published in Canada but by Random House which is a major American publisher. There are 9 customer reviews on Amazon.ca which do not appear here. Why? Aren't Amazon and Random House both multi-national corporate entities? This book deserves better. The few bad reviews are obviously from readers who want easy-to-read books. Some reviewers complain that the shifting around in time confuses them, and at one level I can understand that. The plot shifts around in location too. But having read the book, then re-read it to clear up some questions about "who was who and when and where", it is easy to see why MacIntyre uses such a plot device. It captures and intensifies the inbred inter-relatedness of the culture, and the personally difficult multi-layered life of the main character, a priest in mid-life struggling with many things - only one of which is his church's use of him to cover up child abuse. The themes are much broader and more universal than a Catholic Priest in the Canadian Maritimes dealing with child abuse. In my opinion this is a very good book that needs better readers, and perhaps better handling by the publisher and the marketer as well. I almost gave 'The Bishop's Man' five stars but I am rarely that generous. I do keep re-reading it, which I do only with very good books.

This book was well deserving of the Giller Award. When I was reading the book I was enjoying it so much I never wanted it to end. I felt I had met these priests and knew these places. I don't know if someone who wasn't acquainted with the small town Catholic experience would like it as much as someone who was familiar with Canadian Catholic culture. I could almost smell the furniture polish in cleanliness & sterility of the rectory uncluttered with the chaos of everyday working class family life. The ordinariness of deeply tragic events is superbly written.

The Roman Catholic Church's clerical sex abuse scandal forms the backdrop for the Giller prize-winning "The Bishop's Man," by Linden MacIntyre. In this psychologically complex and sensitive character study, the middle-aged Father Duncan MacAskill is coming to grips with a career spent cleaning up after other priests' misdeeds. His bishop, for whom MacAskill has served to cover up these potential scandals, sends him to a rural parish in Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia after impending litigation threatens to reveal the diocese's embarrassing and indeed criminal secrets.

MacAskill, known as "the Exorcist" for his work handling problem priests, has more than a few demons in his own closet: a deceased but still haunting alcoholic father who was deeply scarred by his involvement in a terrible war incident, MacAskill's own unresolved guilt over the death of a Honduran priest friend, the suicide of a young man who may have been abused by one of the priests MacAskill handled, MacAskill's profound confusion over his priestly vocation, a lost love and brooding loneliness, and his own alcoholism. It's as if the novel were a Picasso cubist portrait: we get many shattered fragments of his psychological state. Ultimately, MacAskill becomes utterly bereft of faith in God's mercy and redemption. He is able to string together theological insights for his homilies, but is unable to admit God to work in his life. He surrenders to his demons instead until a cathartic and tragic act pushes him finally to move on.

"The Bishop's Man" is lyrical, with wonderfully evocative passages, especially those describing the severe beauty of Nova Scotia. MacIntyre also has a particularly good ear for dialogue between characters that are not entirely forthcoming about their inner lives. The novel's principal structure is overall a linear one, but there are a considerable number of flashbacks in the story, some of which are journal entries and so italicized, but others unmarked and so might cause momentary disorientation. These jarring changes in time are deliberate reflections of MacAskill's mental state.

This novel creates artistic truth from the recent revelations of ecclesiastical crimes and obfuscations. It can be read in the context of these current events, or as a study of a man's inner struggle with faith, or simply as a portrait of a self-alienated human being trying desperately to regain himself. It is sombre and moving, and well worth the several hours to read it.

This book is very worthy of the Giller Prize that it won last year. Mr. MacIntyre does a remarkable job of characterization and of plotting. The book almost reads like a thriller, keeping the reader on the edge of their seat throughout. And although the subject that it deals with is an awful one, and uncomfortable to read about, I never once lost my enthusiasm for the story and for the wonderful characters. And it is such a wonderful story that it held me mesmerized throughout. Terrible secrets are never a good thing for anyone concerned. They eat away at individuals until there is a sad and hopeless ending. Father Duncan Mackasil

had enough secrets in his life when he was a child, and as he grew more and more were added, especially when he becomes his Bishop's Man-the man sent to deal with the fallout from wayward and straying priests. All the secrets take a terrible hold of Father Duncan until a catastrophic event at the end of the book which forces him to make a final decision as to how he is going to live the remainder of his life. Yes, it is a disturbing and troubling book to read, but one that is well worth the trouble. This is a book that will weather the ages, I think. The topic is one that is for these times for sure.

The Bishop's Man was a wrenching, moving, compelling book to read. A few years back, in one of my own memoirs (Pinhead), I commented that I thought the Catholic priesthood with its requirement of celibacy was probably one of the loneliest professions on earth. MacIntyre's beautifully written novel does little to dispel that notion. Narrator Father Duncan MacAskill is perhaps one of the most tortured voices in contemporary fiction as he weaves his tale of deceit and coverups in the Canadian Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandals of the 80s and 90s and describes his own role as a bishop's hatchet man who attempts to control damage to the Church and its image by making the "bad priests" disappear. Another character, like Duncan a damaged soul and fellow priest, states best (toward the end of the story) what may be the main theme of the book -

"It's always a mistake to identify too closely with any institution. That might have been our downfall. Losing ourselves inside the vastness of the Holy Mother Church, forgetting who we are as people ... Institutions are amoral ... We should never lose touch with our individuality. Once you lose that, you lose touch with the basics. The right and the wrong of things. I have to think we're conditioned to the the right thing, as people. But not as institutions. There's no morality in an institution. It's just a thing."

Duncan's boss, "Bishop Alex" - a literary villain who will be remembered, I'm sure - has obviously lost sight of "the right and wrong." He is portrayed as the ultimate company man who will stoop as low as necessary to protect that amoral institution that he works for - the Church.

Much of the story in The Bishop's Man centers around the tragic suicide of a troubled young man in the remote Cape Breton parish where Duncan has been sent by the bishop to keep him out of the public eye during the sexual abuse investigations. The priest who delivers the homily at the funeral says this of the boy's short suicide note -

"I'm told he wrote 'There is no future.' Think of that ... Think of where we have arrived as a society when those who shape the circumstances of our lives and communities can leave our young, the very embodiment of our collective fate, in such a state. There is NO future?"

A bit of existential angst, you might think, but the fact is, the suicide has more to do with things like homophobia in a small town, as well as the ongoing Church sexual abuse stuff. There is also much to ponder here about the importance of father-son relationships, as in when Duncan comments on missed opportunities at better understanding his own war-damaged father, saying, "When you're young, you aren't usually interested." And the character he says this to, the suicide's father, replies: "Well, isn't that the way. The things I'd like to ask the old man now. When it's too late."

Much is made of the damage done by the insularity, isolation and loneliness imposed by vows of priestly celibacy, vows sometimes broken and then agonized over for years to come, as evidenced in Duncan's journal entries from his 70s soujourn in a Central American mission, where he'd been sent to cool his heels after making his own accusations of sexual abuse by a priest who happened to be a friend of the Bishop. These journals are interspersed throughout the narrative and elipitically tell a tale of a love affair, as well as a close friendship with another young charismatic priest he knew there.

There are scenes of incipient alcoholism, depression, crushing guilt and even suicidal impulses which increase to a point where the narrator is sent away to Braecrest, a Church "rehab center," to get dried out and counseled. If there is a guardian angel in the story, it is probably personified in Duncan's roommate there, a "good thief" priest named aptly - no, not Dismas, but Jude, who if I remember my saints correctly, was the patron of lost causes.

There is so much to think about in this book. I could go on, but I won't. This has been a good year for me, as far as discovering numerous books of high quality. But this book, The Bishop's Man, is one that will resonate with me for a long, long time. It was a number one bestseller in Canada last year. Here in the U.S. we rarely get bestsellers of this quality. Almost makes a booklover want to move to Canada. I do plan to read MacIntyre's other two books. Maybe that will have to do for now. - Tim Bazzett, author of BOOKLOVER

I recently finished reading The Bishop's Man by Canadian author and well known broadcast journalist Linden MacIntyre. What can I say but that the book was profoundingly beautiful in its descriptiveness and unique 'Cape Breton' voice, but also proundly disturbing and melancholy because of the subject matter. It takes place in the 90's when the news of the ongoing scandals within the Catholic church first begin to surface. It is written from the point of view of Father Duncan MacAskil - the Bishop's go-to man for covering up the sexual misdemeanors of fellow priests. It is raw, emotional and complex in it's treatment of the topic - definitely no pat answers here! Through multiple flashbacks which finally come together, we see into Father Duncan's troubled mind and past. It emanates from a place of truth and authenticity, and although there is a sense of satisfying closure at the end of the book, we are still left feeling reflective..

This is not an easy read, but it is a book that spurs you on to its conclusion. I recommend this book to anyone looking for something deeper than the typical feel good story.

I had no problem following the story. Once started it was difficult to put the book down.

My one wish would be that it it was longer.

A dreary, depressing book. So many damaged people. So many characters in need of shrinks. I did not like the crafting of the book - the way the story moved back and forth in time and also in different scenes. Oftentimes it would be unclear what the author was trying to say but far from clarification the reader is thrown headlong into a different scene.

Admittedly the author has a flowery way with words. E.g. "Soft pools of red and white and green light made a confection of the snow in front of blazing houses." (115)or "January storms out, February swaggers in full of bluster and hostility...." (255). Nicely put but I cared more for the 'meat' of the story.

The last scene with MacAlister and Danny Ban was poignant and very touching.

Did anyone notice that the name Brendan Bell eventually changed to Brenton Bell?

This is a well written and organized book about a crisis of faith of a Catholic Priest.

MacIntyre's style here is thoroughly journalistic. Skillfully written, but with a character of the conventional assumptions, rather than the original insights, as much journalism is now.

There is a publishers blurb on the book's cover stating the book is a "deeply wise and moving novel that explores the guilty minds and spiritual evasions of Catholic priests".

The book, however, skips the surface of Catholicism, never plumbing its depths or tapping its source. Clearly McIntyre falls into the contemporary frame of mind of on faith, thoroughly skeptical and material, that will neither submit to its strictures, nor to categorically reject its Truths.

There is an undercurrent to this book, if not hostile, ignorant of the Catholic Church. It is casual and credulous in its analysis, lacking a template of understanding and roots.

There is a problem if someone with a residual and atrophied relationship with his Church, attempts to delve into the interior perspective of a religious. What is missing is a pervasive sense of its conforming supernatural and moral architecture. That might be contentious, as with James Joyce, but if it is merely a means with which to discredit, as with MacIntyre, it rings hollow.

The author relies on the image of a Priest as a thoroughly modern man, cynical, pessimistic, grounded in that which is relative and individual rather that which is absolute and indivisible. He relies on temporal stereotypes in an institution which defines itself in primary archetypes, especially in its sacrificial priesthood.

My lasting memory of his MacIntyre's work on the Fifth Estate was of his credulous defense of a convicted child rapist and murderer Stephen Truscott. He was a skilled spell caster and con man who ran a decades long campaign for exoneration aimed at gullible media types, who campaigned for him.

Because of this agency, Truscott had the conviction thrown out, despite overwhelming evidence of his guilt (to the point of moral certainty), and received a multi million dollar settlement from the Ont. gov't, to the horror of family members of his victim and the mockery of justice.

MacIntyre's novel, as with his journalism, anticipates an outcome that drives the presentation of the plot. The investigation is of appearance not substance. The analysis here is spotty and anecdotal. MacIntyre has many irons in the fire, and apparently, many scores to settle. You should not confuse this book as one about Catholic Church or faith.

This book won Canada's top literary award in the Giller Prize this year for what is at best a competent but undistinguished book. There were more worthy candidates for that top prize