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Communion
You didn't go to the seminary to become a priest, the rector had explained on their first morning. You went to learn what God was asking of you.
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 at war with his faith. Back in his childhood bedroom, he remains committed to the idea of a moral life, but isn't entirely sure what that looks like.
He takes a job as a security guard at the local steelworks and begins an uneasy transition into the world of industry, brotherhood, and community he once rejected. When the men of the steelworks organise an unprecedented strike in protest against job cuts, he goes along with it. Meanwhile, his mother watches footage of past catastrophes and prays for the dead.
The last person Mack expects to see in the local club is Siwan Roderick - the woman who appeared out of the blue at the seminary one day to make a confession and swore him to secrecy. Mack kept his word. But as the day of the strike nears, tensions in the town escalate and allegiances are tested. Mack's loyalty to Siwan and his desperation to do the right thing will change both of their lives forever.
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 at war with his faith. Back in his childhood bedroom, he remains committed to the idea of a moral life, but isn't entirely sure what that looks like.
He takes a job as a security guard at the local steelworks and begins an uneasy transition into the world of industry, brotherhood, and community he once rejected. When the men of the steelworks organise an unprecedented strike in protest against job cuts, he goes along with it. Meanwhile, his mother watches footage of past catastrophes and prays for the dead.
The last person Mack expects to see in the local club is Siwan Roderick - the woman who appeared out of the blue at the seminary one day to make a confession and swore him to secrecy. Mack kept his word. But as the day of the strike nears, tensions in the town escalate and allegiances are tested. Mack's loyalty to Siwan and his desperation to do the right thing will change both of their lives forever.
265 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 2, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 4, 2026
A wonderful debut novel of post-industrial Welsh life, political activism, religious and social vocation and live theatre. That is quite a potent mix, but I loved the result.
The protagonist Mack is an ex-seminarian, someone who was training to be a priest, but who has left that path and returned to his factory town in Wales. In a sense, he’s like someone returning from university to find he no longer quite fits, but in another sense, he isn’t at all, because he’s come back to work and live, and he has lost the thing that took him away.
The town is gearing up for two events: a strike, and an Easter production of The Passion performed on streets and in businesses all over the city, which heavily implicates Jesus in the past and future direction of the town. Mack is unwillingly coerced into being one of the apostles—which, we are never told, but my money's on Judas. (My money is not worth much though, since the extent of my religious education was doing an English Lit degree).
I loved some of the descriptions of the play:
The Saviour led the way to the supper. A procession in eerie hush... Something in the dusk light and sense of common purpose. The total commitment to spectacle... Gaunt men in paper aprons handed greasy burgers through stall windows. An ice cream van chugged its exhaust. At the entrance, a row of men wearing pin badges and works uniforms were there to greet the pilgrims. A picket line, already translocated. A welcome like coming home…Backs of heads, silhouettes. A long table lit from above. There was no stage, just the table slightly raised under the snooker lights. Thirteen places set with napkins and paper plates. Pints already filled to the brim.
Relaxing a little into his new-old life, Mack has a bit too much to drink—and promptly runs into his childhood friend Siwan. The last time she saw him he was a priest. More: he was her confessor, and she told him a secret.
There are a number of wonderful and skilfully drawn threads and characters here: Mack's uneasy relationship with both his father Jackie, who was disappointed when he chose to be a priest and is very much a man of the people, and his mother, who is religious in quite a ghoulish way--she likes to watch videos of past atrocities (September 11th, cars mowing down pedestrians at fairs and protests) to pray for their souls. Mack now works in factory security with Denzil, also a wonderful creation.
In this novel, the past and the modern world feel like uneasy, sometimes anachronistic bedfellows. The town votes to strike, but this isn’t the twentieth century, it’s a time of industrial decline and the company couches its decisions in mealy-mouthed corporate speak about the green transition. It’s a story in which a young man, straight-faced, puts himself in a monastery—but he can’t really get away from the modern world that way either. Late in the book, there is a conversation with a Roman soldier. An extra from the play? An emissary from another time?
This felt, ultimately, like a tale about how to be in the world, how a person can go forward with conviction amid all the usual injustices (uncaring corporations, stuttering industry, health effects from the dirty work that feeds the community) and yet none of the potential cures. Even the strike, which involves the whole town, has something defeated about it—Mack and others suspect that the company is just looking for an excuse to close the plant altogether. Mack's choices, or maybe his lack of choices, pull him towards a final, unexpected vocation.
I have come to set the world on fire, Jesus Himself had said. I only wish it were already burning.... With his fervour came a sense of action. The line between hope and delusion was thin.
The protagonist Mack is an ex-seminarian, someone who was training to be a priest, but who has left that path and returned to his factory town in Wales. In a sense, he’s like someone returning from university to find he no longer quite fits, but in another sense, he isn’t at all, because he’s come back to work and live, and he has lost the thing that took him away.
The town is gearing up for two events: a strike, and an Easter production of The Passion performed on streets and in businesses all over the city, which heavily implicates Jesus in the past and future direction of the town. Mack is unwillingly coerced into being one of the apostles—which, we are never told, but my money's on Judas. (My money is not worth much though, since the extent of my religious education was doing an English Lit degree).
I loved some of the descriptions of the play:
The Saviour led the way to the supper. A procession in eerie hush... Something in the dusk light and sense of common purpose. The total commitment to spectacle... Gaunt men in paper aprons handed greasy burgers through stall windows. An ice cream van chugged its exhaust. At the entrance, a row of men wearing pin badges and works uniforms were there to greet the pilgrims. A picket line, already translocated. A welcome like coming home…Backs of heads, silhouettes. A long table lit from above. There was no stage, just the table slightly raised under the snooker lights. Thirteen places set with napkins and paper plates. Pints already filled to the brim.
Relaxing a little into his new-old life, Mack has a bit too much to drink—and promptly runs into his childhood friend Siwan. The last time she saw him he was a priest. More: he was her confessor, and she told him a secret.
There are a number of wonderful and skilfully drawn threads and characters here: Mack's uneasy relationship with both his father Jackie, who was disappointed when he chose to be a priest and is very much a man of the people, and his mother, who is religious in quite a ghoulish way--she likes to watch videos of past atrocities (September 11th, cars mowing down pedestrians at fairs and protests) to pray for their souls. Mack now works in factory security with Denzil, also a wonderful creation.
In this novel, the past and the modern world feel like uneasy, sometimes anachronistic bedfellows. The town votes to strike, but this isn’t the twentieth century, it’s a time of industrial decline and the company couches its decisions in mealy-mouthed corporate speak about the green transition. It’s a story in which a young man, straight-faced, puts himself in a monastery—but he can’t really get away from the modern world that way either. Late in the book, there is a conversation with a Roman soldier. An extra from the play? An emissary from another time?
This felt, ultimately, like a tale about how to be in the world, how a person can go forward with conviction amid all the usual injustices (uncaring corporations, stuttering industry, health effects from the dirty work that feeds the community) and yet none of the potential cures. Even the strike, which involves the whole town, has something defeated about it—Mack and others suspect that the company is just looking for an excuse to close the plant altogether. Mack's choices, or maybe his lack of choices, pull him towards a final, unexpected vocation.
I have come to set the world on fire, Jesus Himself had said. I only wish it were already burning.... With his fervour came a sense of action. The line between hope and delusion was thin.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Jon Doyle's superb debut novel, Communion, takes us to the industrial landscape of South Wales and the Port Talbot steelworks, where Mack O'Brien, recently returned from his time in a seminary, adjusts to life outside of religious enclosure and finds a different brotherhood with the men of the steelworks.
As his relationships with his co-workers, especially with a fellow security guard and with local woman Siwan, develop, Mack O'Brian finds his certainties in the world challenged.
There is a quiet beauty to Communion, a hauntingly beautiful restraint, and out of his themes, Jon Doyle is able to create comparisons between two worlds, and show in sharp detail the life of a man trying to find meaning and purpose in the world.
I highly recommend Communion, and it is one of my highlights for 2026 already, and one I will be foisting on friends. So thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
As his relationships with his co-workers, especially with a fellow security guard and with local woman Siwan, develop, Mack O'Brian finds his certainties in the world challenged.
There is a quiet beauty to Communion, a hauntingly beautiful restraint, and out of his themes, Jon Doyle is able to create comparisons between two worlds, and show in sharp detail the life of a man trying to find meaning and purpose in the world.
I highly recommend Communion, and it is one of my highlights for 2026 already, and one I will be foisting on friends. So thank you to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC.
June 12, 2026
Roman na koji sam naleteo nekako usputno, i koji me je možda zbog toga toliko oduševio. Sve više i više mi se čini da u vreme algoritma, gudridsa, leterboksda (a voljna žrtva sam svih), konstantnih preporuka, zaboravljamo pomalo da je nekada čarolija u neočekivanom, poklonu od prijatelja, ili eto, u ovom slučaju, nasumičnom susretu u jednoj simpatičnoj knjižari u Londonu (šaut aut Libreria).
Zašto onda petica? Džon Dojl je relikt svog vremena i to je ovde očigledno - mali velški gradić (Port Talbot u stvarnom svetu), potpuno centriran oko fabrike čelika (Tata Stee(a)l u stvarnom svetu), ima nešto nalik na Uksršnji festival koji biva spojen sa štrajkom sindikata radnika čeličane, gde naš protagonista, bivši pop-u-pripremi, trenutni radnik u prethodno pomenutoj kompaniji, sreće devojku iz svog detinjstva koja možda jeste a možda nije ekoterorista sa svojim - opravdanim? suviše ekstremnim? - namerama. Dakle konflikt između crkve, potrebe za činjenjem dobrog, ekoterorizma kao oblika političkog nasilja, kapitalističkog zelenog farbanja, potrebe radne klase, i tako bliže, i tako šire. Dojlov pozitivno napukli stil je uglavnom potpuno u službi svog protagoniste, ali ponekad mu se omakne da ode predaleko, i tekst izgubi svoju oštrinu. Ali sve u svemu, ovo je jedan potentan tekst, relevantan, zanimljiv, dinamičan, sa životnim likovima, i možda najjačih poslednjih dvadeset stranica knjige od mojih nedavno pročitanih, na jedan poseban, a suptilan način. Preporuka, ili pre želja da na knjigu ili nekoj njoj nalik naletite spontano, i da vas ona slično čačne.
5-
Zašto onda petica? Džon Dojl je relikt svog vremena i to je ovde očigledno - mali velški gradić (Port Talbot u stvarnom svetu), potpuno centriran oko fabrike čelika (Tata Stee(a)l u stvarnom svetu), ima nešto nalik na Uksršnji festival koji biva spojen sa štrajkom sindikata radnika čeličane, gde naš protagonista, bivši pop-u-pripremi, trenutni radnik u prethodno pomenutoj kompaniji, sreće devojku iz svog detinjstva koja možda jeste a možda nije ekoterorista sa svojim - opravdanim? suviše ekstremnim? - namerama. Dakle konflikt između crkve, potrebe za činjenjem dobrog, ekoterorizma kao oblika političkog nasilja, kapitalističkog zelenog farbanja, potrebe radne klase, i tako bliže, i tako šire. Dojlov pozitivno napukli stil je uglavnom potpuno u službi svog protagoniste, ali ponekad mu se omakne da ode predaleko, i tekst izgubi svoju oštrinu. Ali sve u svemu, ovo je jedan potentan tekst, relevantan, zanimljiv, dinamičan, sa životnim likovima, i možda najjačih poslednjih dvadeset stranica knjige od mojih nedavno pročitanih, na jedan poseban, a suptilan način. Preporuka, ili pre želja da na knjigu ili nekoj njoj nalik naletite spontano, i da vas ona slično čačne.
5-
May 23, 2026
I think there should be many more ambitious and outward-looking books like this but…
I felt like the writer really hamstrung himself with the injunction ‘show, don’t tell’ at certain points.
Like I said, there were moments of great writing. I can see the good book in this.
I felt like the writer really hamstrung himself with the injunction ‘show, don’t tell’ at certain points.
Like I said, there were moments of great writing. I can see the good book in this.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 4, 2026
Loved this book, read like a noir at times and the fact it was set in Port Talbot was perfect
I get so sad driving past the steelworks since it shutdown, this book reflects the real sense of community and all the good and bad things that come with being part of a tight knit town
Great debut
I get so sad driving past the steelworks since it shutdown, this book reflects the real sense of community and all the good and bad things that come with being part of a tight knit town
Great debut
April 26, 2026
The journey of a man pushed out from seminary returning to his home, but of course you can never really return home. The frozen images of his mother, his girlfriend, his father and fellow steelworkers, and the town priest, all who continued living during his departure, have turned into real persons, with frailties, shame, and private failures shaped by their own paths. All as he searches for what’s left that he can believe in.
“I used to pray for a Game Boy . . . when I was a kid . . . . Then Mam told me God don’t work like that, so I stole one from the girl next-door and prayed for forgiveness instead.”
“I used to pray for a Game Boy . . . when I was a kid . . . . Then Mam told me God don’t work like that, so I stole one from the girl next-door and prayed for forgiveness instead.”
May 12, 2026
This is a deeply prescient debut which tells a compelling story about faith in a modern world. Tackling class, masculinity, loss and the climate crisis.
The story charts the course of an Easter weekend where an immersive Passion play takes over the town of Port Talbot (which did happen irl with Michael Sheen) and the workers plan to stage a strike alongside the weekend in protest of plans to shut the blast furnaces and transfer over to the more environmentally sustainable Electric Arc but at the cost of thousands of jobs. The blast furnaces closed a couple of years ago so this novel feels poignant in its timing.
Mack - who returns to his home town of Port Talbot - after his attempt to train as a priest doesn’t work out. He struggles to find true connection amongst the community of workers he has long been separated from but also feels a close sense of solidarity with them. We find that his separation from the church comes from a frustration with their theoretical approach to Christ’s doctrine rather than practical, justice-focussed action.
As all these factors push and pull, Mack finds himself reconnecting with a former childhood friend/ quasi sweetheart who is an environmental activist and it’s hinted at throughout the text that she looks to take direct action to further her cause.
In the book - work and action is a form of deliverance and faith throughout and it is the uniting force behind all the characters. The reserved but elegant writing style makes it difficult to read at first but it’s worth sticking with because it creates beautiful and philosophical layers. An impressive debut that provides much to think of.
The story charts the course of an Easter weekend where an immersive Passion play takes over the town of Port Talbot (which did happen irl with Michael Sheen) and the workers plan to stage a strike alongside the weekend in protest of plans to shut the blast furnaces and transfer over to the more environmentally sustainable Electric Arc but at the cost of thousands of jobs. The blast furnaces closed a couple of years ago so this novel feels poignant in its timing.
Mack - who returns to his home town of Port Talbot - after his attempt to train as a priest doesn’t work out. He struggles to find true connection amongst the community of workers he has long been separated from but also feels a close sense of solidarity with them. We find that his separation from the church comes from a frustration with their theoretical approach to Christ’s doctrine rather than practical, justice-focussed action.
As all these factors push and pull, Mack finds himself reconnecting with a former childhood friend/ quasi sweetheart who is an environmental activist and it’s hinted at throughout the text that she looks to take direct action to further her cause.
In the book - work and action is a form of deliverance and faith throughout and it is the uniting force behind all the characters. The reserved but elegant writing style makes it difficult to read at first but it’s worth sticking with because it creates beautiful and philosophical layers. An impressive debut that provides much to think of.
May 20, 2026
Set in Port Talbot, Wales, during The Passion, a 72 hour National Theatre of Wales production staged across the town over Easter weekend in 2011, this concerns Mack, a former seminarian now working rather as a security guard at the local steelworks, where many of the men, including his father, find work.
What follows is an account of how Mack got himself into the situation he finds himself, by way of external influences and sheer bad luck.
Doyle's writing is fine, but the book is more of a frustration than anything else, as there is little depth to the other characters, and little framework, rather just that Mack needs to act to prevent himself from descending into depression.
I am not a fan of religious themed writing, and had thought that this would avoid that. Perhaps inevitably, it doesn't.
Of interest though was the production of The Passion, which was directed by and starred Michael Sheen. The production unfolded in real time, moving through streets, and beaches, as well as less glamorous areas of the town. Doyle never names Sheen directly, but the reference to him is unmistakable.
What follows is an account of how Mack got himself into the situation he finds himself, by way of external influences and sheer bad luck.
Doyle's writing is fine, but the book is more of a frustration than anything else, as there is little depth to the other characters, and little framework, rather just that Mack needs to act to prevent himself from descending into depression.
I am not a fan of religious themed writing, and had thought that this would avoid that. Perhaps inevitably, it doesn't.
Of interest though was the production of The Passion, which was directed by and starred Michael Sheen. The production unfolded in real time, moving through streets, and beaches, as well as less glamorous areas of the town. Doyle never names Sheen directly, but the reference to him is unmistakable.
May 25, 2026
A beautifully written, evocative of time and place novel. Set in Port Talbot during Easter 2012 where an actual community immersive play of The Passion took place, is featuring characters mainly from the local stealworks, who not only participate in the play but are also organising for a strike.
The main character, Mack O'Brien, in his early twenties, has been asked to leave the seminary, where he was studying to become a priest, because, as we find out, he had "no real calling". A lost soul, not just metaphorically, ponders life, as he rejoins his family and the wider community whose lives have been dominated for generations by the stealworks.
He also reunites with a young woman, Siwan, with whom he was close at school. We quickly understand that Siwan is an activist, who not only has confessed her intentions regarding the factory premises to him, binding him with the "Seal of Confession", at his last day in the seminary, but also wants to use him for gaining access to the premises.
The book captures very well Mack's internal turmoil, his struggle to give meaning to his life, to belong but there is no road to redemption here. In the end, he makes the choice to blow everything up because there is nothing that he can believe in. And this vortex towards nothingness is the core theme of the book, quite powerful as the story unfolds, but left me with a sense that something was amiss. This is mainly because Mack is an intelligent, inquisitive and compassionate person but somehow is afraid to take his questioning all the way or engage with others, which as a reader I found difficult to understand and rather frustrating at times, but perhaps this was the author's intention all along. Certainly a remarkable debut!
The main character, Mack O'Brien, in his early twenties, has been asked to leave the seminary, where he was studying to become a priest, because, as we find out, he had "no real calling". A lost soul, not just metaphorically, ponders life, as he rejoins his family and the wider community whose lives have been dominated for generations by the stealworks.
He also reunites with a young woman, Siwan, with whom he was close at school. We quickly understand that Siwan is an activist, who not only has confessed her intentions regarding the factory premises to him, binding him with the "Seal of Confession", at his last day in the seminary, but also wants to use him for gaining access to the premises.
The book captures very well Mack's internal turmoil, his struggle to give meaning to his life, to belong but there is no road to redemption here. In the end, he makes the choice to blow everything up because there is nothing that he can believe in. And this vortex towards nothingness is the core theme of the book, quite powerful as the story unfolds, but left me with a sense that something was amiss. This is mainly because Mack is an intelligent, inquisitive and compassionate person but somehow is afraid to take his questioning all the way or engage with others, which as a reader I found difficult to understand and rather frustrating at times, but perhaps this was the author's intention all along. Certainly a remarkable debut!
Read
May 9, 2026A wise, witty, and reverent look at the rituals we play - religious, secular, and the overlaps. Beautifully written, with loveable characters, a gripping plot, and Port Talbot brought to life with rich prose.
It's ingeniously multilayered too - one to read again and again.
It's ingeniously multilayered too - one to read again and again.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
He was never quite sure he was the sort of man to become a priest in any case. Feared he lacked the depth of mind. Prayed right enough but never thought to expect an answer. Catholicism was more like a cadence running through his head. But there was attraction in that way of living. The shelter of a life portioned up according to ancient rites. And nothing was ever set in stone, as Canon Sylvester always reminded him. He could follow the path with curiosity and wait for God to provide a sign. In the months before he left, he read everything the canon gave him. Made diligent notes regardless of how much he understood. He did this alone and with great seriousness. Organised his days into blocks of time in his room with nothing but paper and a pen. He prayed every night. Hail Marys, Glory Bes. The Lord’s Prayer and a period of silent contemplation. Devotion as a state of quietness. An open receptivity.
This book featured in the 2026 version of the influential and frequently literary-prize-prescient annual Observer Best Debut Novelist feature.
Interestingly it is one of the top books on the eight strong list to centre in effect a Catholic Priest and in a way very different to is typical in say Irish literary fiction where Catholic Priests or Nuns are portrayed as part of an oppressive/abusive/backward looking society (as one novel recorded it in effect moving the colonisation of Ireland from England to Rome) – here instead featuring men struggling to reconcile the strict demands of priesthood with their personal convictions and passions.
Here the close third party narrator is Mack (Cormac O’Brien) – who some years before the novel’s setting in Holy Week 2011 in Wales’s steel-plant industrial town of Port Talbot (famously and crucially the crucible for three famous actors – Anthony Hopkins, Richard Burton and featuring as an unnamed character in the novel Michael Sheen) – as a teenager went to a nearby seminary for a decade or so to train as a Catholic Priest rather to the bafflement of his steelworker father Jackie and the quiet pride of his mother.
However things at the seminary did not work out – Mack’s increasing focus on faith-driven activism causes the seminary authorities to question the motivations for his calling – and now he is back and has taken a job as a security guard at the steel plant. And the week itself is a momentous one – the famous actor is staging an interactive Passion play as an interactive community event (as did actually occur) and this also coincides with a strike at the plant to protest against the overseas owners plans to make the production more environmentally but less employment friendly (these actions did and still are occurring although I don’t think there was a strike that weekend – more that the play itself told the Gospel story as one where the Romans were in effect the overseas plant owners).
Mack has an unclear involvement in both – a reluctant (and inconsistent) apostle in the play co-opted by his father, and under conflicting pressure from the steelworkers and from his employer (and fellow security guards tempted by a bribe of extra pay – thirty pieces of silver perhaps) as to whether to join the strike.
In a further piece of narrative action – perhaps the most impactful for Mack – shortly before he quit the seminary he was visited by Siwan. He and Siwan had an odd relationship as children – subject to weekly trips to the town’s cinema, and arrangement connected (in ways the young Mack never quite worked out) with some issue with Siwan’s Mum (perhaps only now realising it was effectively his mother offering a childcaring break). In the seminary however Siwan wants to confess to him – but an odd confession with he not yet (or likely to become) a priest and she confessing to something she is about to do ……. Mack then finding in another conflict as to what to do with the information given he feels, despite his lack of vows, bound by a seal of silence. And this week Siwan re-appears and Mack finds himself even more implicated in her proposed action.
And there are many other strands to the novel: the local Priest is about to retire with ill-health, a retirement that he had always assumed would have a readymade replacement in the newly ordained Mack, and the Priest seems to be closer to Siwan and possibly her actions than Mack would expect; Mack and Siwan find themselves drawn back to the now boarded up and derelict cinema – the only real place they historically encountered each other; Mack’s mother prays for souls in purgatory – but not friends or fellow congregants but for example 9-11 victims – watching videos obsessively; Mack has some odd encounters – one with a man apparently contemplating suicide, a closing one with a man dressed as a Roman Centurion who may or may not be a very convincing extra from the passion play – and against all of this the strike, the passion play (scenes of which we glimpse or are immersed in) and the church events of Holy Week play out.
This is not a novel for those who want clear answers and plot resolutions – little is spelt out (the seal of silence Mack took giving I think an excellent literary motivation for why we never hear what Siwan confessed to him albeit we can work it out) and the novel ends with more of a sense of mystery than closure.
It is instead one for those who want intelligent examination of ambiguous themes: what does it mean to have to live under expectations (of carrying on the traditions of a working class industrial community or the even more ancient traditions of the Catholic church) – and (linking to the play) what roles and parts are we required to play; how does one reconcile the strictures of institutional faith with the apparent activism of the Gospels; how does the free market interact with community cohesion and in particularly how are the livelihoods of working class industrial communities reconciled with environmentalism (some of the discussions here resonate even more strongly today) – or in other words how can the traditions of the past be reconciled with the emergencies of the future (which again links to the way in which the Passion play is retold as well as to Mack’s seminary struggles).
Returning to my introductory remark I will be interested to see how literary fiction readers react to the faith aspect – one of the various aspects of the relatively narrow world view of such readers (and the editing/writing community) is view to Western religion somewhere between antipathy and apathy – to perhaps put it another way their catholic tastes do not typically extend to Catholicism. However – this year a Booker judge famously wrote a memoir about her married Catholic Priest father (and someone who has written on the origins of Christianity as an institutional Roman religion) – so this novel has to be in strong Booker contention and would I think be a fascinating inclusion.
My thanks to Atlantic Books for an ARC via NetGalley
July 4, 2026
I really wanted to connect with this book, but it has so much unexplored potential. Aside from the protagonist, Cormac, the other characters are left fairly undeveloped, except in brief moments that offer insight into their private lives. Even the way Doyle attempts to discuss religion seems unsure of itself, trying so hard not to be didactic that it ends up saying too little. The ending's abstraction is a manifestation of a long-running condition, but it really does come out of nowhere and is quite jarring. All of these things, though, are easily explained by the fact that this is a debut novel; this makes it clear why Doyle at times seems hesitant to branch out into less comfortable and conventional narrative aspects. The use of full stops where a comma would be preferred also kept bugging me, something I attribute to the editors at Atlantic.
Still, a good debut novel with an intriguing character-driven premise that is also well-grounded in a wider socio-political context (Michael Sheen is portrayed without being named), and I hope to read more of Doyle's writing in the future! :)
Still, a good debut novel with an intriguing character-driven premise that is also well-grounded in a wider socio-political context (Michael Sheen is portrayed without being named), and I hope to read more of Doyle's writing in the future! :)
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A solid 3 for Communion, which manages to be both thoughtful and tense without ever quite tipping into melodrama.
Mack’s return to Port Talbot sets the tone early on: “He walked head down with his collar high, convinced he recognised everyone he passed… he’d left to become a different person and returned more or less unchanged.” That sense of being caught between identities runs through the whole book and gives it a quiet steadiness.
What works well is how Doyle lets the moral dilemma unfold without overplaying it. The seal of confession could easily have felt abstract, but here it’s grounded in something immediate and increasingly urgent. The strike storyline adds pressure rather than distraction, and the two strands come together neatly.
It’s not a showy novel, and at times it holds back where you might expect it to push further. But there’s something quite deliberate in that restraint. By the end, it leaves you with a knotty question rather than a tidy resolution, which feels about right for the territory it’s covering.
Mack’s return to Port Talbot sets the tone early on: “He walked head down with his collar high, convinced he recognised everyone he passed… he’d left to become a different person and returned more or less unchanged.” That sense of being caught between identities runs through the whole book and gives it a quiet steadiness.
What works well is how Doyle lets the moral dilemma unfold without overplaying it. The seal of confession could easily have felt abstract, but here it’s grounded in something immediate and increasingly urgent. The strike storyline adds pressure rather than distraction, and the two strands come together neatly.
It’s not a showy novel, and at times it holds back where you might expect it to push further. But there’s something quite deliberate in that restraint. By the end, it leaves you with a knotty question rather than a tidy resolution, which feels about right for the territory it’s covering.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Beautifully descriptive writing with themes of faith, acceptance and belonging.
The main protagonist Mack has recently left the seminary and returned to his home town where there is the imminent threat of major redundancies from the steel works factory which is the main employer in the area. The story takes place during Easter Holy Week and the town is staging a real time enactment of those events to draw wider media attention to their plight.
The various characters and their significance and the at times somewhat surreal sequences made this a challenging read for me and I would have preferred a bit more clarity. The author places a lot of faith in the reader to pull the strands of the story together.
However overall this is a very promising debut.
My thanks to Atlantic Books, NetGalley and the author for this advanced copy
The main protagonist Mack has recently left the seminary and returned to his home town where there is the imminent threat of major redundancies from the steel works factory which is the main employer in the area. The story takes place during Easter Holy Week and the town is staging a real time enactment of those events to draw wider media attention to their plight.
The various characters and their significance and the at times somewhat surreal sequences made this a challenging read for me and I would have preferred a bit more clarity. The author places a lot of faith in the reader to pull the strands of the story together.
However overall this is a very promising debut.
My thanks to Atlantic Books, NetGalley and the author for this advanced copy
July 3, 2026
Communion appears to be a thoughtful and emotionally rich novel about faith, identity, and the search for purpose. Mack O'Brien's return home after leaving the seminary sets the stage for a deeply personal journey as he struggles to reconcile his beliefs with the realities of everyday life. Against the backdrop of a steelworks facing job cuts and a community on the brink of a major strike, the story explores loyalty, morality, and the bonds that connect people during difficult times. The unexpected reappearance of Siwan Roderick adds a layer of tension and personal conflict, raising the stakes as Mack is forced to balance his conscience with the promises he has made. Blending intimate character development with broader social issues, Communion promises a compelling and reflective story about finding one's place in a changing world.
May 28, 2026
2.5 ⭐
I get the writing. With like 80 pages to go you could see where the ending was going to go. It was largely underwhelming. I wasn’t particularly interested in the faith aspect of the book, not necessarily dismissive either. More the strike aspect, the small community aspect and the start and middle was very strong.
What was being withheld allowed for enough room in your imagination to fill gaps.
The end it completely fell a part and it felt like the book was lacking a solid enough plot line. It would have helped if more was revealed.
It grew tiresome pretty quick and underwhelming very quickly.
I get the writing. With like 80 pages to go you could see where the ending was going to go. It was largely underwhelming. I wasn’t particularly interested in the faith aspect of the book, not necessarily dismissive either. More the strike aspect, the small community aspect and the start and middle was very strong.
What was being withheld allowed for enough room in your imagination to fill gaps.
The end it completely fell a part and it felt like the book was lacking a solid enough plot line. It would have helped if more was revealed.
It grew tiresome pretty quick and underwhelming very quickly.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
The author writes very well! But I'm a simple person and I need answers and a conclusion.
May 21, 2026
Huge thanks to everyone who spends time with Communion, it means the world to me.
June 15, 2026
*4
'Forgive me Father, for I am about to sin ...'
'Forgive me Father, for I am about to sin ...'
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Jon Doyle’s debut novel Communion is set in the southern Welsh town of Port Talbot in the recent past. It opens with the protagonist, Cormac “Mack” O’Brien, out drinking with his ageing father and a group of current or retired workers from the steel plant that dominates the town’s economy. “Fitting in with the boys” does not come easily to Mack. He has just spent several years at the seminary training to become a priest, but his activism and questioning faith did not sit well with his superiors, who effectively sent him away. He has now taken a job as a security guard at the steelworks – and indeed, where else could he find work in Port Talbot, where life revolves around the steel industry?
Trouble, however, is brewing. The unions are increasingly at odds with management and are planning strike action. An upcoming community passion play scheduled for Holy Week, featuring a famous Hollywood actor from Port Talbot, might offer the unions an opportunity to broadcast their message to a wider audience.
Mack, still finding his feet in the outside world, faces further unexpected moral crises when he reconnects with a childhood friend, Siwan Roderick. Just before he left the seminary, Siwan visited Mack and made a confession to him, binding him to secrecy. Although, as Mack repeatedly points out, he was not ordained and therefore was not technically bound by the seal of confession, he honours the promise. Yet this vow, coupled with his renewed involvement with Siwan, forces him into a series of difficult and consequential decisions.
Communion was one of the first novels I read this year, and will likely prove to be among the best. It is a realist working-class novel, rooted in the heat, sweat, toil and grime of the steel industry. Small wonder that in 2023, then a novel-in-progress provisionally titled "Tenebrae", it won the Writers & Artists Working Class Writer’s Prize. The novel draws much of its authenticity from the author’s own background as a (Catholic) son of Port Talbot: two generations of Doyle’s family worked at the steelworks, while the passion play at the centre of the narrative is inspired by a real-life event, Michael Sheen’s 2011 production The Passion of Port Talbot.
Yet Communion is also a deeply philosophical novel that asks searching questions about community, faith and social expectations. What does it mean to be called to the ministry? Are religion and social activism complementary or fundamentally at odds? And does priesthood require a renunciation of masculinity?
This tension between the worldly and the Godly, the secular and the religious, the material and the spiritual, is reflected in the novel’s style. Doyle adopts a close third-person perspective centred on Mack, conveyed through pared-down, direct and matter-of-fact prose that suits the novel’s social realism. At the same time, the narrative is punctuated by moments that invite a more symbolic or mystical reading, at times edging towards magical realism. One thinks, for instance, of Mack’s conversation with a would-be suicide tied to a railway track; of his mother rewatching videos of past tragedies while praying for the victims’ souls; or of the final scene, in which Mack, dressed in priestly robes, encounters a centurion on the beach – who may, or may not, simply be a participant in the passion play. I was also struck by the description of the Good Friday ceremony attended by Mack and Siwan: the religious atmosphere is conveyed not, as one might expect, through lush or opulent imagery, but through the same restrained, minimalist prose that Doyle employs throughout the novel.
Doyle also maintains a firm grip on the plot. The secret at the heart of the novel is never explicitly revealed, although by the end we have a fairly clear sense of what it might be, and this withheld revelation lends the story a certain narrative tension, at times giving it the feel of a thriller.
This is an impressive debut.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
Trouble, however, is brewing. The unions are increasingly at odds with management and are planning strike action. An upcoming community passion play scheduled for Holy Week, featuring a famous Hollywood actor from Port Talbot, might offer the unions an opportunity to broadcast their message to a wider audience.
Mack, still finding his feet in the outside world, faces further unexpected moral crises when he reconnects with a childhood friend, Siwan Roderick. Just before he left the seminary, Siwan visited Mack and made a confession to him, binding him to secrecy. Although, as Mack repeatedly points out, he was not ordained and therefore was not technically bound by the seal of confession, he honours the promise. Yet this vow, coupled with his renewed involvement with Siwan, forces him into a series of difficult and consequential decisions.
Communion was one of the first novels I read this year, and will likely prove to be among the best. It is a realist working-class novel, rooted in the heat, sweat, toil and grime of the steel industry. Small wonder that in 2023, then a novel-in-progress provisionally titled "Tenebrae", it won the Writers & Artists Working Class Writer’s Prize. The novel draws much of its authenticity from the author’s own background as a (Catholic) son of Port Talbot: two generations of Doyle’s family worked at the steelworks, while the passion play at the centre of the narrative is inspired by a real-life event, Michael Sheen’s 2011 production The Passion of Port Talbot.
Yet Communion is also a deeply philosophical novel that asks searching questions about community, faith and social expectations. What does it mean to be called to the ministry? Are religion and social activism complementary or fundamentally at odds? And does priesthood require a renunciation of masculinity?
This tension between the worldly and the Godly, the secular and the religious, the material and the spiritual, is reflected in the novel’s style. Doyle adopts a close third-person perspective centred on Mack, conveyed through pared-down, direct and matter-of-fact prose that suits the novel’s social realism. At the same time, the narrative is punctuated by moments that invite a more symbolic or mystical reading, at times edging towards magical realism. One thinks, for instance, of Mack’s conversation with a would-be suicide tied to a railway track; of his mother rewatching videos of past tragedies while praying for the victims’ souls; or of the final scene, in which Mack, dressed in priestly robes, encounters a centurion on the beach – who may, or may not, simply be a participant in the passion play. I was also struck by the description of the Good Friday ceremony attended by Mack and Siwan: the religious atmosphere is conveyed not, as one might expect, through lush or opulent imagery, but through the same restrained, minimalist prose that Doyle employs throughout the novel.
Doyle also maintains a firm grip on the plot. The secret at the heart of the novel is never explicitly revealed, although by the end we have a fairly clear sense of what it might be, and this withheld revelation lends the story a certain narrative tension, at times giving it the feel of a thriller.
This is an impressive debut.
https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...
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