The Bishop's Man

I now know why this book won the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award as well as receiving numerous other literary accolades. What an excellent book! I decided to read it to prepare myself for reading Linden MacIntyre's new novel, "Why Men Lie" (publication date: March 2012)

The story follows the life of a Catholic priest named Duncan MacAskill. Duncan is known among his fellow clergymen as the "Exorcist" because he has spent most of his time as a priest being the Bishop's clean-up man and take care of potential controversies before they become public. After a period of time when he was sent to minister in Central America, he is sent by the Bishop to oversee a small Cape Breton Island parish where he would keep a low profile and deal with an new impending public controversy, all the while, dealing with his own personal demons.

I found this book to be very well-written, even though at times the plot jumps back and forth between the present and the past. The dialogue between characters was very true to life, in my opinion. You really get a sense of Duncan's personal inner conflict and wonder how he is going to make it through.

This book was published at around the same time as a $15 million settlement was reached in the sexual abuse scandal in the Antigonish diocese in Nova Scotia. As a non- Catholic, I did not know some of the references to the Catholic religion, but that did not seem to hamper my understanding of what was happening in the book. "The Bishop's Man" has been described in Quill & Quire as "a well-crafted, brave and painful examination of one of the most monstrous issues of our time." Since Linden MacIntyre is from Cape Breton Island, the reader gets a true sense of what life on the island is really like.

I highly recommend this book.

I am not often inspired to pick up a book simply because it has won national awards but this book and its subject matter was intriguing. I was not disappointed. The very delicate subject of sexual abuse within the Catholic Church and its subsequent cover up for years might turn you away from this troubling story. Don't let it - it is an important story to be read and understood. It is told from the perspective of a priest who is "chosen" by his bishop to be the bridge between victim and perpetrator and his ultimate goal of preserving the institution of the Holy Mother Church. Damaged himself, the story skirts his own troubled past as well as the slow unraveling of the web of secrecy that has been created to protect the Church and his own conflict with the role that he has played throughout. Without delving into the gory details of abuse, the author has given us incredible insight into these tormented souls. Both the soul of the abused as well as the soul of the priests sent to "counsel" the victims. A difficult subject at best, the book is incredibly well written providing the reader with a view angled to both sides but never losing its ultimate message that hiding what had been done damaged the Church, its pastors as well as its parishoners.

First off, this book is not for everyone. It’s a bit slow, complicated at times, it touches on topics not everyone likes to discuss and it is definitely not a page-turner. However, it is a gripping tale of the odd conflict between life and humanity. The central character is a priest with a somewhat-checkered past. After years in the church he is asked to run his own parish, near his hometown in eastern Canada. While there, our priest learns to confront his past demons, while dealing with new ones along the way. Through a writing style that can be best described as poetic, MacIntyre reveals the hardship that a priest must live through for his “profession” – primarily loneliness and constant gossip. I felt the book was showing how priests, who are often held to an unfairly high standard, struggle with same factors we all do. Priests are simply human beings, who make mistakes, have doubts and insecurities. There is a part of the book that talks about people being too wrapped up in institutions (regardless of what they are) and there downfalls…we forget who we are in them– I think anyone can relate to that. A book that makes you review and consider your life – a tough, but great read.

To read The Bishop's Man, by Linden MacIntyre, is to come to an understanding about nuance, patience and the sometimes ambiguity of knowledge.

The novel is set in the late 1990s of Cape Breton, at a time when the Catholic Church is under siege both from within and without, and when Canada's fisheries are collapsing. Come into this Father Duncan MacAskill, known among his colleagues as the 'Exorcist', the damage-control man for the Bishop of Antigonish.

Duncan himself is in need of damage control, burned out, over-stressed, searching for his own relevance in a Church with diminishing relevance. There is very much the feeling of shadows in this novel, of whispers in the wind, of the reluctance to acknowledge hurt, tragedy, and responsibility. I know of many editors, even writers, who would have condemned the first half of this novel as too introspective, too slow, that the character of Duncan MacAskill is too remote.

They would be wrong. As was I. What Linden MacIntyre creates with this cool, distant approach is a fragile foundation he then, in the last few chapters, ruthlessly, and yet with grace, rips out from under the reader's metaphorical feet and leaves you numb, in my case weeping. In a story so reserved in its emotional impact, it creates a thunderous impact in the end so that the only word left to describe this novel is memorable.

I had this book on my shelf for almost a year before I started reading it, and it took me less than a week to finish. Macintyre's insight into the thought processes of a man of the cloth make you believe that you are reading a work of non-fiction. This book is truly a great Canadian novel.

I bought this book thinking that, with a title like "Bishop's man" it will be more about MacAskill being the bishop's man. It was more about his humanity and shortcomings as a priests. It was a good story but I agree that I will probably not read it again.

In the tradition of books like The Thornbirds, Macintyre presents Catholic priests as humans with failings. The protagonist, the bishop's man, is without personality or energy and Macintyre does a good job of developing such an uninteresting character. Although the book touches on the current sex scandals within the Catholic church, Macintyre neither examines them deeply nor offers any insights, with the possible exception of having the Bishop frame the publicity about them as the work of anti-Catholics. . In the end, the book is as sterile as the priests with whom it deals.

I thought this was a beautifully written and thoughtful book about a good man who has made decisions in his life which he thought were for the greater good, but has to face the fact that much damage was done.

This novel is beautifully written and holds your attention. It's relevant with all the bad publicity the Catholic Church has received lately and it gives an interesting perspective.

I could not put this one down. It was a great read and I did not find it dull at all. The subject matter is dark and this is not a 'feel good novel' but at the same time, I thought the author drew a good balance between the worst actions of humanity (and the church) and the general decency of people; our capacity to love, forgive, and overcome life's most difficult obstacles. The main character's struggle between being a man/person and his obligations/vows to the church made him surprisingly relatable. The writing was excellent and I look forward to more novels by MacIntrye. The dialogue and discriptions of the Cape Breton setting were so real I felt like I was transported back to the east coast.

I bought the book because there was a preview online of the first chapter. It grasped my attention. Unfortunalty if I would have known that the story line was as slow as it was I wouldn't have spent the money on a hard cover book. I wasn't overly impressed but I wasn't outright bored. I will not be reading the book again.

Though well written…with words and paragraphs that flow...I've named this novel "the joyless book".

"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."

I was impressed with this book...even the subject matter didn't deter me from wanting to finish. What did make me glad to finally turn the last page was that I could finally step out of the morose atmosphere the author managed to convey throughout the book. It seemed that none of his characters got any joy out of being alive. They all seemed to swim around in secrets and the past. Life just isn't like that for everyone...and while I could probably handle the main character's glum and pessimistic attitude...I couldn't handle every character living in that type of environment with that type of sad mood.

The Bishop's Man by Linden MacIntyre is written in first person, and revolves around a priest named Duncan MacAskill. I was surprised that there was so little discussed about religion considering that it was in the viewpoint of a priest. I neither liked nor disliked the protagonist, which is exactly what I felt about this book. There were many different scenes that started off with people talking, and I would have to guess who they were. A lot of the scenes, I found, were pointless. There were flashbacks to a time when MacAskill had visited the Honduras, to his attempt at a teenage relationship, and of his abusive father. These flashbacks and the problems the protagonist faced made him more human.

Overall, there isn't as much excitement as I was led to believe. Everything is very subtle, everything happens slowly. I was just reading without being amused or fascinated, and for that, I kept getting lost in the words and forgetting what I had just read and then having to reread those sections. Perhaps if I were a Catholic, I would've enjoyed this book more. I don't know.


The priest, Duncan MacAskill, is seen running errands for the Bishop to prevent bad news related to priests from becoming public information. MacAskill meets with those that have been sexually abused by a priest to help cover up the information, reassuring them that something will be done to the abuser, the priest. 'Victim' is a word that the Bishop refuses to use because victims are only creations of an over-active imagination. It is the Bishop who says that he wants priests to keep their "noses out of public matters." So that the public will "keep their noses out of ours." (209)

MacAskill is trusted by the Bishop, and whatever work he is assigned related to situations such as the above one, he is to keep it a secret. Later on, he is assigned his own perish of Creignish. Yet wherever he is appointed, in essence, the job of a priest entails the priest to be alone most of the time. And being the man the Bishop relies on, the bearer of bad news, he is lonelier than most priests. Once MacAskill thinks, "A storm gives purpose to my idleness… Or justifies the lack of purpose." (94) He mentions that when he was choosing to become a priest, he was explicitly told to choose "between the desires of the world and the life of sacrifice and service." (133) It is seen that the loneliness eventually gets to MacAskill and he develops an addiction to alcohol.

MacAskill does wonder what leads a priest to do such things, but he believes that "Deviance is a loss of faith." (96) There is this one former priest named Brendan Bell that MacAskill believes might be the cause of some occurrences. A boy residing in the perish next to MacAskill's, named Danny MacKay, is behaving badly, and in the past had been in contact with the former priest, Brendan Bell. MacAskill wonders if Bell has been the cause of Danny's depression.


The following are some lines I enjoyed:

"Age reopens forgotten places in the memory…" (124)

"The sorrow comes in waves, the way the restless shoreline sighs and rustles long after the passage of a distant vessel." (137)

"A creeping uneasiness intruded like a cloud." (171)

""A conscience is an awful curse… Guilt can turn into a disease if you're not careful. That's the trouble with diaries, at least if you're honest in them."" (203)

"I should have seen what was coming next. But the future has no substance until it turns the corner into history." (228)

"They say the eyes reveal the state of the soul, and his eyes were clear as the blue sky that day." (231)

2.5/5

A story centering on a small town priest coming to terms with his role in the Catholic sex scandal cover-ups and his own personal demons. Suspenseful in its shifts in time line this book had me enthralled within 20 pages. MacIntyre did an absolute fantastic job in making the main character someone that I could relate to. While Reverend MacAskill's struggles are things specific to being a priest the undertone is something most anyone could relate to; Pressures from superiors to bury your beliefs and morals for the greater good of the 'company', temptations of forbidden love, and of course everyone's favorite, addiction.

At almost 400 pages I tore through this book in less than a week. I would definitely recommend it, however I'm not sure I would read it again because the topic is decidedly dark and depressing. In saying that MacIntyre did an amazing job not getting lost in a horrifying subject. Great book!

Initially I found this book difficult to get into. There are many characters, and the plot moves slowly. But I gained real insight into the abuse within the Catholic church, and how, perhaps, it is hidden. A wonderful, moving read - well worth the effort.

An absorbing, page turner as a priest confronts the secrets and questions his own role in priesthood and life.

With Linden MacIntyre being one of my favourite journalists, I was thrilled to hear of his novel being honoured as the winner of the Scotiabank Giller prize for 2010. After reading the synopsis of the story, I knew it would be an uncomfortable read, but trusted in MacIntyre's reverence and honesty to make it through. I was not disappointed.

The Bishop's man is a story told in spirals, as we twist and turn through past and present fluidly, giving us a clearer picture of the events that can become cloudy through space and time. It is by way of these happenings that we are presented with brutally honest characters living lives of deceit and despair. These tragically flawed people are human in their beastliness, conflicted, damaged, and eternally struggling to break the vicious cycle of pain and suffering.

At times my anger was palpable as the Bishop insisted on covering up the harsh realities of the evil-doings administered by the hands of his precious and misunderstood brotherhood, where 'victims' were only the creations of over-active imaginations and troubled youth.

On more than one occasion I wrestled with my understanding of good and evil, and what faith means in today's modern world. I am of the mind that Catholicism and its primitive structures are in need of a revamp in respect to how the world has changed, and what we've learned about humanity along the way. For the sake of the Catholics out there, I pray that they will make the changes that are needed to gain back so many members that they have lost due to their closed-mindedness and denial. As naïve as some may consider it, I will always believe that faith is an important and necessary part of a happy, moral and fulfilling life.

Amidst the madness and injustice, we pause to take in the haunting and beautiful descriptions of small towns, where you can hear the fiddle and smell the sea salt lifting off the page. Linden MacIntyre has proven to be an adoring poet in his love of the East coast and of the Gaelic and English languages. His words are profound and emotive, and I look forward to picking up his other novels in the hopes of more of the same.

Just a couple of his affecting offerings…

"The future has no substance until it turns the corner into history."

"The bay is flat, endless pewter beneath the rising moon."

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The Bishop's Man was the 2009 Giller Prize winner. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Giller, it's Canada's largest annual prize for fiction, netting the winner $50,000. McIntyre, a well-known Canadian journalist who has won nine Geminis for broadcast journalism, beat out Anne Michaels, Colin McAdam, Annabel Lyon, and Kim Echlin.

I'm not sure The Bishop's Man is a book I'd pick up on my own, but it's this month's book club pick. Still, the novel's opening pages had me intrigued. Its narrator, Father Duncan MacAskill, is an intriguing character, but then he starts to spiral out of control and so does the book.

MacAskill is known as the "Exorcist." The Bishop sends him to clean up after fallen priests - men who have sullied the name of the priesthood by engaging in sexual relationships with - well - anyone. As we all know, celibacy is one of the tenets of the priesthood.

MacAskill isn't without his own secrets, though. When the bishop decides to send him back to his childhood home, MacAskill is forced to confront his own demons. Isolated from the world in backwoods Cape Breton MacAskill suddenly realizes how lonely he is and he begins to drink heavily.

The Bishop's Man is a page-turner. Lots of things are hinted at, enough to make the reader wonder: about the suicide of a young man and his relationship with a charismatic priest who has since left the order and married; about MacAskill's time in Honduras, revealed in snippets from his diary; about where his relationship with Stella, a woman in the village, might be headed; about his childhood.

McIntyre juggles all these various threads and I guess this is where the book failed for me. I'm not a moron, but sometimes the out of sequence narration was really a pain-in-the-ass. I'm all for the elliptical, but I'm not sure it served the story in this instance (unless McIntyre was trying to mimic the disordered state of MacAskill's mind.)

I haven't read the other novels on the Giller shortlist and so I'd be curious to see how they stack up against this one. I guess the one thing The Bishop's Man has going for it is a sense of immediacy. The Catholic Church has certainly had its share of troubles. Whether or not the novel's verisimilitude is enough to overlook its other issues is up to the reader, I suppose.

I really tried my darnedest to get into this book, the premise was intriguing and I found the main character to be an interesting fellow, dealing with his memories of his past work for the church and his drinking problem.

But the constant time shifts throughout the book, often happening every paragraph, made it incredibly distracting to read. At times, you wouldn't realize until much later that you were in a different time period and would have to re-read a section with that in mind.

This title just wasn't up my alley.

I loved this book. Linden Macintyre has a wonderfully descriptive writing style that brings you into the story. I could hardly wait to pick this book back up every chance I had in order to move further into the story.