Priests, Prayers, and Problems

‘A History of Loneliness’
Author: John Boyne
Reviewer: Terri Schlichenmeyer

Throughout your life, your faith has sustained you. In times of fear, you’ve prayed for courage. On troubled days, you’ve asked for favors. You’ve thrown gratitude heavenward, and you’ve demanded condemnation from the Higher Power you know. Some prayers are answered, some are not.

But what if your religion failed you—or, as in the new book A History of Loneliness by John Boyne, it just quietly eased away?

Once Odran Yates’ mother informed him that he had “a vocation,” Odran never questioned that he would someday be a priest. She told him that shortly after their family of five lost two members in a tragedy they rarely discussed. She said it after she became devout and made Odran and his sister, Hannah, attend Mass every Sunday. And her proclamations made sense to him. So, as a 16-year-old, Odran went to Clonliffe College seminary in his native Ireland, where he roomed with Tom Cardle, the boy he considered his best friend.

While Odran was certain that he was perfectly suited to be a priest, Tom was another matter. Once, while in seminary, Tom tried to leave, but his father brought him back, black and blue, and left him. Odran had wondered if that was why Tom was prone to fits of strangeness.

Odran had lost contact with Tom years ago, but there were rumors that Tom was being moved from parish to parish a lot. That seemed odd, and Odran was upset that Archbishop Cordington wanted him to leave his beloved position as librarian at a boys’ college to take over the parish that Tom had just been moved from. The Archbishop promised that it would be a short-term change, but weeks would become years.

With his sister ailing, his nephews estranged, and the job he loved lost, Odran hated being a mere parish priest, and he “didn’t know what to think.”

“But there’s the lie,” he said. “I did know what to think. Only I could not bring myself to think it.”

Respectfully outraged, timely, scandalous, and loaded with more than a little controversy, A History of Loneliness shimmers like a multifaceted diamond. Indeed, I barely know where to start—perhaps with the main character.

Odran is a simple man, a clueless go-along-to-get-along kind of guy who likes to think of himself as responsible and intuitive. He’s a likeable lad but not really friendship material; he’s predictable, gossipy, and staid except on the occasions when he doubts his faith and his priestly vows. That’s when he surprises himself, as well as us. But author John Boyne doesn’t stop there. Set in modern-day Ireland and Rome, Boyne populates this tale with close-lipped, complicated people; gives it dialogue rich with Irish brogue; and hands his readers plenty of exceptional back-plots.

That adds up to a stunner of a novel that feels like you’re reading a movie—one that needs to jump to the top of your to-read list today. But first, clear your calendar—once you start A History of Loneliness, you don’t have a prayer.

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old, and she lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books.