The Oblate's Confession

by William Peak

Overview

The Dark Ages, England: a warrior gives his son to a monastery that rides the border between two rival Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Growing up in a land wracked by war and plague, the child learns of the oath that binds him to the church and forces a cruel choice upon him. To love one father, he must betray another. The decision he makes shatters his world and haunts him forever. This quietly exotic novel places us compellingly in another time, another place, where chieftains fear holy men, holy men fear the world, and prayer has the primal force of fire. While entirely a work of fiction, the novel's background is historically accurate. In the midst of a tale that touches the human in all of us, readers will find themselves treated to a history of the Dark Ages unlike anything available today outside of textbooks and original source material.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780990460800
Publisher:	Secant Publishing
Publication date:	12/01/2014
Pages:	416
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.50(d)

About the Author

The Dark Ages, England: a warrior gives his son to a monastery that rides the border between two rival Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Growing up in a land wracked by war and plague, the child learns of the oath that binds him to the church and forces a cruel choice upon him. To love one father, he must betray another. The decision he makes shatters his world and haunts him forever. This quietly exotic novel places us compellingly in another time, another place, where chieftains fear holy men, holy men fear the world, and prayer has the primal force of fire. While entirely a work of fiction, the novel's background is historically accurate. In the midst of a tale that touches the human in all of us, readers will find themselves treated to a history of the Dark Ages unlike anything available today outside of textbooks and original source material.

Editorial Reviews

★ 2014-12-22
A debut coming-of-age novel set in a monastery in medieval England. In Peak's understated but entirely spellbinding debut novel, Winwaed's warrior father, Ceolwulf, gives him as an offering, or oblate, to the monastery at Redestone, near the border between two warring kingdoms in seventh-century Northumbria. The novel's central structure is that of a fairly standard bildungsroman, in which young Winwaed must learn the ways and rituals of the monastery, navigate the personalities of the various monks who have control over his life, and grapple with the inner struggles of a spiritual life. It also addresses the broader realities beyond the abbey's fields, where war and plague stalk the land and where Christianity, newly come to the country, rests uneasily alongside native pagan beliefs that have held sway for millennia. With a sure hand and a formidable amount of research, Peak brings to life the day-to-day realities of the monastery, its food and drink, its dress, and its duties tied to the seasons. But Peak's strongest suit is people, and his characters are unfailingly well-realized; for example, a protracted scene in which Ceolwulf and Winwaed have their first conversation is a masterpiece of insight. The novel is told entirely from a much older Winwaed's point of view, and although this has the expected effect of sapping the action, Peak captures his characters' inner dimensions so well that it more than compensates. In one beautiful little moment, for example, Winwaed looks out his window and sees an empty space where a cherry tree stood during his boyhood: "They don't live long, do they, the fruiting trees?" he says. In his acknowledgments, the author thanks "first and foremost" the famed monk known as the Venerable Bede in a gesture that's guaranteed to endear him to medievalists. Fans of the quieter moments in Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael novels, not to mention aficionados of Bede, will find a great deal to like in these pages. A vividly realized story of one boy's attempt to live a life of faith in a time of war.

Kirkus Review