Communion

An exceptional and lauded debut novel about the tension between faith and action, set in a town in Wales threatened by industrial decline

Just so we’re clear, she had said, I know the rules of this. What I say cannot be repeated. Not to anyone.

When Mack O’Brien left his home in Port Talbot for the seminary as a teenager, he didn’t imagine he’d be back a decade later, unordained and still at a loss as to what makes for a moral life. He takes a job as a security guard at the local steelworks and begins an uneasy transition into the world he once rejected. When the men of the steelworks organize an unprecedented strike in protest against job cuts, he sees no reason not to go along with it.

The last person Mack expects to see in the local bar is Siwan Roderick—the woman who appeared out of the blue at the seminary one day to make a confession and swear him to secrecy. Mack kept his word. But as the day of the strike nears, and as he begins to fully understand what Siwan is planning, Mack is forced to reckon with his loyalty to her and the question of whether an act of violence can ever be justified.