The riveting narrative of an honorable Irish priest who finds the church
collapsing around him at a pivotal moment in its history.
Propelled into the priesthood by a family tragedy, Odran Yates is full
of hope and ambition. When he arrives at Clonliffe Seminary in the
1970s, it is a time in Ireland when priests are highly respected, and
Odran believes that he is pledging his life to "the good."
Forty years later, Odran's devotion is caught in revelations that
shatter the Irish people's faith in the Catholic Church. He sees his
friends stand trial, colleagues jailed, the lives of young parishioners
destroyed, and he grows wary of venturing out in public for fear of
disapproving stares and insults. At one point, he is even arrested when
he takes the hand of a young boy and leads him out of a department store
while looking for the boy's mother.
But when a family event opens wounds from his past, he is forced to
confront the demons that have raged within the church and to recognize
his own complicity in their propagation, within both the institution and
his own family.
A novel as intimate as it is universal, A History of Loneliness is
about the stories we tell ourselves to make peace with our lives. It
confirms John Boyne as one of the most searching storytellers of his
generation.
