Book News
“Bishop’s Man” wins top honors.
Linden MacIntyre, an investigative journalist who wrote a novel about sexual abuse by Catholic priests, has won one of Canada’s most prestigious literary awards.
MacIntyre won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for his book “The Bishop’s Man.”
The novel tells the story of a Roman Catholic priest tasked with stamping out sex abuse scandals before they go public. The book is set in Antigonish, Nova Scotia — a place MacIntyre calls one of Canada’s most religious communities.
The book is especially timely, coming out shortly before Canada was rocked by a high-profile scandal that saw a bishop, charged with overseeing settlements to sex-abuse victims, arrested for possessing child pornography.
Other finalists were Kim Echlin, for “The Disappeared”; Annabel Lyon, for “The Golden Mean”; Colin McAdam, for “Fall”; and Anne Michaels, for “The Winter Vault.”
The $47,000 prize, created in 1994, honors Canadian fiction. Past winners have included Margaret Atwood, Mordecai Rhichler and Alice Munro.
The judges this year included Canadian novelist Alistair MacLeod, U.S. novelist Russell Banks and British biographer Victoria Glendinning. The Associated Press
First Lines
Death Message, by Mark Billingham
He could tell they were coppers the second he clapped eyes on them, but it was something in how they stood, in that formal awkwardness and the way their features set themselves into an overtight expression of concern, that drilled a hole straight through to his guts; that sucked the breath from him as he dropped into the chair the female officer had advised him to take.
He drew spit up into his dry mouth and swallowed. Watched as the pair of them tried and failed to make themselves comfortable; as they cleared their throats and pulled their own chairs a little closer.
All three winced at the sound of it. The dreadful scrape and its echo.
They looked like they’d been dropped into the room against their will, like actors who had wandered on to a stage without knowing what play they were in, and he felt almost sorry for them as they exchanged glances, sensing the scream gathering strength low down inside him.
The officers introduced themselves. The man — the shorter of the two — went first, followed by his female colleague. Both of them took care to let him know their Christian names, like that would help.
“I’m sorry, Marcus, but we’ve got bad news.”
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Publishers Weekly
