A History of Loneliness
Readers rate it 4.1 (13 on Hardcover)
380 pages · Released 2014 · Doubleday
Content report card
A History of Loneliness parent’s guide: what’s inside
Violence
LGBTQ+ themes
What it offers
Educational value
A note for parents
This is an adult literary novel centered on institutional child sexual abuse by Catholic clergy in Ireland. While not graphically depicted, the subject matter is pervasive and deeply troubling, exploring trauma, institutional complicity, and moral reckoning. The protagonist's journey toward confronting his own role in enabling abuse is emotionally heavy. This book is appropriate only for mature teen readers or adults equipped to handle themes of child abuse and institutional failure.
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From the publisher
"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 h... "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 grows nervous 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 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 Boyne as one of the most searching storytellers of his generation"-- "An honorable priest recalls his life and ultimately confronts his own complicity in the heinous acts of his best friend from the seminary"--
Shelved under
- Child sexual abuse
- Sexual misconduct by clergy
- Clergy
- FICTION / Religious
- FICTION / Literary
- Fiction
- Fiction, general
- Ireland, fiction
- Priests
- Families
- Child sexual abuse by clergy
- Catholic Church
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ISBN 9780857520951 · Doubleday