The Priest: A Gothic Romance

While the cover of The Priest proclaims the book to be "A Gothic Romance", take my word for it that it is in reality far from that. It is a tale of very taboo subjects, such as gays in the Priesthood, abortion rights, and Catholic doctrine. If you are easily offended, back slowly away from this book and leave the room. Rest assured, Disch actually attacks none of these subjects, simply offers up a well-written piece of fiction with many muses intertwined with the tale. Remember that it is a piece of fiction. Father Patrick Bryce is not a good man, having already been chastised by the Church for being caught abusing a young boy. Father Bryce is a pedophile, and an unrepentant one, though he is back at work in Saint Bernardine church along with Father Cogling, a strictly old-fashioned Priest with an unkind heart. Above all, the church wants no scandals, and so when a man named Clay shows up with evidence of Father Bryce's sins, he submits to the blackmail rather than fight it. But Clay doesn't want money, he wants Bryce to get a tattoo of the devil on his chest, and read a book called A Prolegomenon To Receptivist Science by cult leader A.D. Boscage, while Bishop Massey expects him to lead the controversial anti-abortion rallies for the sake of the Church. Meanwhile, we are introduced to Silvanus de Roquefort, the Bishop of Rodez in the small village of Montpellier-le-Vieux, back in the middle ages, around the thirteenth century. Silvanus is a vain man, and devoted to the Church only insomuch as it benefits his station and well being. When Patrick and Silvanus begin to switch mind and body, in a process the cult leader Boscage calls "Transmentation", things really start to fly loose and fall apart. There are many other interesting characters interwoven into the plot, like Gerherdt Ober and his sister Hedwig, religious fanatics who run the Birth-Right Center where girls are locked in cells and forced to bear their children. Bing Anker, a former victim of Father Bryce who stirs his friend Father Mabbley into action, and a young girl named Alison who gets caught up in the storm brewing at Birth-Right. The Priest is a complex novel, full of sin and degradation and mysticism, but what's waiting for you in the end is a plot twist of rare and satisfying dimensions, tucked neatly into a action packed race against time and some brutal revelations. If you have read Disch before, you'll love The Priest. If you haven't, you may want to start with a tamer piece like 334 or The Genocides. Enjoy!

In Disch's book, The Priest, an anti-abortion child molesting Roman Catholic priest is blackmailed into having a large image of the devil tatooed on his chest. As he lays back in the tatoo artist's chair, he changes personalities with a 10th century homicidal maniac Roman Catholic priest. The 10th century priest thinks that he has died and that the two nude tatoo artists are devils torturing him in hell. The story gets more and more crazy from that point on. Anger toward the anti-abortion movement with the Roman Catholic church seems to be the motivating factor behind this book, but I found that the book was full of odd-ball humor and dark dry wit. If you are a Roman Catholic, you will probably find this book very offensive. This is a shame because Disch actually writes very skillfully. I think he is underestimated as a writer. Underneath all the anger is thoughtful social commentary, bitter irony, and masterful use of the English language.

I have been a fan of Thomas Disch for some time, and with this book I got exactly what I wanted. The horror element was not what caught me, nor was the humor. It was Disch's tight, tight, tight storytelling that made this book so amazing to me.Disch has a way of spinning so many different threads out, and then reeling them in to a finely resolution. If you like horror, humor, social farce and a really well woven story, this is for you