The Bishop's Man - by Linden MacIntyre (Paperback)

About the Book

Father Duncan MacAskill knows all about temptation, all the devious ways that lonely priests persuade themselves that their private needs trump their vows. His fellow priests call him the "Exorcist" behind his back because he's spent most of his priesthood as the bishop's clean-up man, sent in to discipline the wayward priests and defuse potential scandal while moderating the emotions of the victims too--something that has been increasingly wearing away at his sense of justice and calling.
And so, when the bishop hears that a big media scandal may be heading their way and suggests Duncan relocate to duties in a country parish, he is only too willing. The trouble is the parish is very near where Duncan grew up. The long nights in the rectory give him too much time to think about his own turbulent childhood, and to drink, and to think some more.
He's already teetering when he meets not only a woman he thinks he might love but also a boy who may have been the victim of one of his fellow priests--a priest he was charged with disciplining years ago.
Pushed to the breaking point by loneliness, tragedy, and sudden self-knowledge, Duncan sets out on a course of action that reveals how hidden obsessions and guilty secrets either find their way to the light of understanding, or poison any chance we have for love and spiritual peace.

Book Synopsis

Father Duncan MacAskill has spent most of his priesthood as the "Exorcist"--an enforcer employed by his bishop to discipline wayward priests and suppress potential scandal. He knows all of the devious ways that lonely priests persuade themselves that their needs trump their vows, but he's about to be sorely tested himself.

While sequestered by his bishop in a small rural parish to avoid an impending public controversy, Duncan must confront the consequences of past cover-ups and the suppression of his own human needs. Pushed to the breaking point by loneliness, tragedy, and sudden self-knowledge, Duncan discovers how hidden obsessions and guilty secrets either find their way to the light of understanding or poison any chance we have for love and spiritual peace.

Review Quotes

Praise for The Bishop's Man

"The Bishop's Man [is] a sombre evocation of realization and regret in the person of Father MacAskill, the titular bishop's man, as he awakens to the scope of the tragedy and his possible role in it"--The Toronto Globe and Mail

About the Author

Linden MacIntyre is the cohost of the fifth estate and the winner of nine Gemini Awards for broadcast journalism. He won the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize for The Bishop's Man, and his previous book, a boyhood memoir called Causeway: A Passage from Innocence, won both the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Nonfiction and the Evelyn Richardson Prize for Nonfiction. He lives in Canada.