Crimes Of The Father by Thomas Keneally

Hardback:  Thomas Keneally pulls no punches in this powerful novel about the Catholic Church's attempts to cover up cases of child abuse, and a priest who decides to help its innocent victims' fight to be heard.

Father Frank Docherty has known temptation.  As a young priest, he came close to breaking his vows for a married woman, just before being expelled from the archdiocese of Sydney for his outspoken views on the Vietnam War.

Now, after years spent in Canada as a monk and psychologist, he returns home to speak at a conference about paedophilia within the Catholic Church.  He had hoped to spend time with his mother and old friends.  But from the moment he arrives, he gets caught up in the issue first-hand:  his taxi driver turns out to be a former nun, boiling with anger at being abused by a priest in her childhood.

Then another case emerges;  a man Docherty last saw when he was a small boy.  And the eminent cleric accused in both cases is the brother of the woman he once fell for, who remains a dear friend.  If Docherty follows his conscience and pursues the truth, the consequences could be devastating for many.

In this searing, compelling novel, Thomas Keneally draws on his own experience as an ex-seminarian to bring alive matters of faith, celibacy, perversion, conscience and marriage.  Portraying the Catholic Church at a pivotal moment, he shows that its prevarications and cover-ups wreaked terrible damage not only on innocents but on itself, with toxic repercussions to this day.

Crimes of the Father (2016) is an excellent example of fiction's capacity to pull apart and explore polarising contemporary problems and gives an honest understanding of a deeply wounded culture.

About the author:  Tom Keneally won the Booker Prize in 1982 with Schindler's Ark, later made into the Steven Spielberg Academy Award-winning film Schindler's List.  His non-fiction includes the memoir Searching For Schindler and Three Famines, an LA Times Book of the Year, and the histories The Commonwealth Of Thieves, The Great Shame and American Scoundrel.  His fiction includes Shame and the Captives, The Daughters Of Mars, The Widow And Her Hero (shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award), An Angel In Australia and Bettany's Book.  His novels The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, Gossip from the Forest, and Confederates were all shortlisted for the Booker Prize, while Bring Larks and Heroes and Three Cheers For The Paraclete won the Miles Franklin Award.  The People's Train was longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award and shortlisted for the Commonwealth Writers Prize, South East Asia division.

Rating:  4/5