The Exalted Company Of Roadside Martyrs: Two Novellas

by Warren Cariou

"The Exalted Company of Roadside Martyrs" is an exhilarating and challenging examination of official and unofficial authority and what happens when they collide. Characters and settings crackle with the reality of their precise portrayal.
These stories are about flawed people in positions of authority and equally-flawed characters who challenge that authority. Concerned respectively with church and state, they show the ways institutions (and their "ministers") deal with and try to control the beliefs of the people.
""Warren Cariou explores the tension between perception and what might be called 'intellectual reason.' He is humorous while always being thoughtful, and his descriptive power is exceptional. He is one of the very best young writers of our time.""-Alistair MacLeod

267 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Ilford Dectol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the greatest read -- two novellas all about formal and informal forms of "authority". An elected politician struggles against the presence of his old childhood nemisis whom the community seems to prefer, even though he may or may not still be alive! (Shrine of the Badger King). A priest who has fallen in love with a battered parishoner has to try and sort things out when the obnoxious abusive husband rises from "the dead" transformed into a "born-again" preacher. (Lazarus) I don't know why there haven't been movies made of these stories yet -- they're tailor-made for the screen.