This is a review I wrote for the Carnegie Medal Award site. I believe the story is inspired by real events in Ireland in the 1980's. I will revise when I get a chance:

There is a very poetic and lilting feel to the writing in this beatifully written but very sad book. The setting is a small community in Ireland where everyone knows your business, has opinions on it, and although religion plays a strong part in the life of the town, a christian approach to helping each other is not always evident.

The focus is on a young teenage girl Shell, who certainly does not have her troubles to seek. Her mother is dead leaving her to cope with her younger brother and sister as well as a father who is certainly not playing his role of parent. She finds comfort in the arms of a teenage boy but the relationship leads to her being caught up in a horrible scandal.

There is a lot that is very sad about this book, but ultimately I thought that there was hope at the end, though maybe not what you could call a very happy ending.

David Anderton is a connoisseur of fine food, wine and classical music. He attended Ampleforth public school, studied at Oxford University, and lived in Rome. His father died when he was younger, and his mother is a Morningside lady (a well-to-do area in Edinburgh) who writes novels. He is erudite, thoughtful and intelligent. David Anderton is a Catholic priest.

Father David is working in Dalgarnock, a fictitious town in Ayrshire, Scotland. Many of the parishioners are unemployed, having lost their manufacturing jobs as the local factories closed down. He has a comfortable rectory at St John Ogilvie, and is assisted by his housekeeper, Mrs Poole. Part of his role involves working with pupils at the local secondary school, St Andrew's, and it is here that he meets Mark and Lisa, who take an interest in Father David. A strange friendship grows between the three, as they exchange text messages, and start wandering at night, exploring the industrial estates and wastegrounds of Dalgarnock, where there is little for teenagers to do except numb the boredom with whatever mischief and substances they can find. I was never sufficiently persuaded just why he - a 56 year old man - participated in the friendship without realising that it was inappropriate however.

It has been claimed that the author has based his Dalgarnock on the real town of Girvan in Ayrshire, (see Sunday Herald article), but my sister and I disagree. We attended St Andrew's Academy (Saltcoats), where you can see the island of Ailsa Craig from the classrooms, we lived in Kilwinning (home of the Mother Lodge of the Orange Order, and an abbey) and in Stevenston (home of the Ardeer club, ICI factory, and the Blue Star garage, which is a name known to locals but not the one on the sign outside). The author has an authentic insider's knowledge of the Three Towns area, and describes it in detail. As teenagers in Stevenston, my sister and I had friends much like Mark and Lisa, and the author's portrayal of these aimless teenagers and the ways they pass their time definitely ring true.

Back to the plot though. It soon becomes apparent that Father David's friendship with Mark and Lisa is ill-advised, though he has been too naive to see this. Having spent a life distracted by art and wine and intellectualism (and a little religion), he is not equipped to recognise manipulation, or to consider how others perceive him and his actions.

Much is made in the book about the differences between Father David's life and the lives of his parishioners. The author writes in great detail about the family lives of Mrs Poole, and Mark, as though he has known people like these. I have known people like these. It is not that the author is simply using the other characters as a contrast to Father David. While social class could be argued as a factor in the way that the book's events are played out, I didn't believe that this was a book about class. For me, this is a heartbreaking and wonderful book about loss, regret and mourning of the path not taken.

Father David is written as a sympathetic character - naive, but essentially well-meaning. We learn about his student days at Oxford at the height of political activism in the 1960s, his friendship with the 'Marcellists', a group of Proust followers, and about the tragic events which lead him to decide to join the priesthood. The priest chooses faith in God as a safety net against the pain and loss of loving, and it is his gradual realisation of this I think, that makes the book so tragic. His relative lack of experience in close relationships leaves him vulnerable. This is a warm, thoughtful and true to life story, and would have received 5 stars if I hadn't been so upset at the end.