Novel
Such Is My Beloved
Morley Callaghan · 1934
Synopsis
A Canadian city in the depths of the Depression. Father Stephen Dowling, a young curate of a poor parish, meets by chance two girls who walk the streets near his church, Ronnie and Midge. He brings them money and clothes, tries to find them work, and gets into the habit of going up to their hotel room to talk with them. His well-off parishioners are alarmed; one of them, a lawyer, alerts the bishop, who summons him. Around him, people ascribe another motive to his charity.
Context
The book was published in 1934 by Scribner, in New York, and by Macmillan of Canada, in a more supple manner than the dry prose of his early books. It opens a series of three novels from the thirties, linked by the same question: what becomes of a man who takes a Christian precept seriously in a city busy surviving. The city is never named in the text, but it is Toronto.
Who it is for
A novel with a bare sentence, without ornament; the religious question is posed there for its own sake and not as period backdrop.
Prizes and reception
Often regarded as one of its author's best novels, and one of his most popular books, it has never gone out of print.
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