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Note: I hadn't intended for this review to get as personal about sexual abuse as it did. Scroll past these five paragraphs if you want to skip to the actual review.

In the mid 80s here in Ottawa, a Catholic priest by the name of Dale Crampton was convicted of sexually abusing several altar boys throughout his career.
It was one of the first cases of its kind, in what would soon be a global exposure of corruption throughout the Catholic church, as more cases would come to light.

I followed Crampton's case closely because I was one of those altar boys back in the early 70s. If this made you gasp, I'm sorry. But you can ease up because I was one of the lucky ones. Crampton had invited me and a couple of other boys to a movie and then to stay the night at his rectory. One of the other guys was a buddy of mine, and he had warned me about him. He said that Crampton wouldn't mess with him after a previous failed attempt, so he told me before we got to the theatre that he would sit between me and him. I wasn't sure if I really believed him because I had known Father Crampton a good while and thought he was a great guy, but I said yeah, okay. Crampton was a big man. He was very tall, good looking, and charismatic. It took quick and little effort for him to thwart my friend's plan and he placed himself so I was sitting on his right.
For the entire movie, I was pushing his hand off my crotch. It was clear that I was having none of it and yet he persisted and the shoving back and forth went on for two hours.
Later that night at his place he attempted to look down the front of my pants, just checking to see if I "had a belly under there". That was it.

His less fortunate victims were raped at his cottage.

I have never considered myself a victim because my experiences were comparatively light and I was not traumatized at all (just left with the impression that I was fiddled by an asshole priest and the ongoing regret that I didn't punch him in the face), but every now and then I'm hit with the realization that given different circumstances I may have been one of the cottage selects.

When Crampton was under investigation, there was a representative for the families who was spearheading this who was interviewed on the local news channel. They had published his phone number for anyone to call him if they were also victims or had more information. I called him that night and told him my story. He proceeded to tell me about the archdiocese being complicit and how they moved priests from parish to parish whenever things got hot. He described this as a "smorgasbord" for pedophile priests. He asked me if I would testify but I declined because frankly what I experienced wasn't near as awful as what others did, and also I was ashamed at the fact that I was 14 and should have been old enough to at least try to punch the shit out of him instead of simply shoving his hand back. It's 48 years later and I still live with that regret.

Crampton initially got off with "treatment for alcoholism and pedophilia". After public outrage this was appealed and he went to jail for 8 months. When he got out he was limited to office work for several years, until he was charged again when more victims from his past came to light. Shortly after, he jumped to his death from his highrise apartment in 2010.
When I read about his suicide, would you believe I felt sadness? My first thoughts were that this was a man tormented by his demons and this was his only way out. A charitable thought, yes, from the good side of me. An alternate one would be that he was simply evil with no recourse. Only he knew for sure, and there weren't many words out of his mouth during his trials.

Did I just write all that? I didn't plan to go into such detail but I think it's helpful to know where I am coming from as a reader of this story.

Review:

John Boyne is one of my favourite authors. His characterization is second to none, his stories are always interesting, and his writing is compulsively readable.
He also has a lot to say about growing up, sexuality, Ireland, and the Catholic church.
This story obviously hit home for me. I wasn't even sure if I wanted to read it, I was actually intending to read Water, his latest, but the damn thing isn't available on this continent yet. However, I had said long ago that I would read anything by the man and so here we are.

Boyne tells this story from the perceptive of a good priest (they are out there, despite my having renounced Catholicism decades ago), from his childhood to his residency in a seminary at 17, to being ordained at the Vatican, and up to present day where the church still reels from sexual abuse scandals.
There were a lot of interesting aspects to Odran's journey, things I never knew about as far as the Catholic hierarchy goes, and although on the surface this aspect may not seem all that gripping, it definitely kept me turning the pages. And this has nothing to do with being raised a Catholic. Boyne puts you into the head and emotions of his characters and I was all in, all the way.
As far as the sexual abuse, the real guts of the story here, there were many parallels to what had occurred in the diocese here in Ottawa at the same time. This stuff was happening all over the globe, evidently. Given my proximity to the events here, the novel hit me deeply. His novels always do, but this one was tough at times.
I always read for escapism but this brought reality crashing back. And that's not a bad thing because this was one terrific novel with a great finish.
One fine novelist, this John Boyne.